


A Fragile Hope

by nonbinaryGhost



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Implied Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, depictions of injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28178082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinaryGhost/pseuds/nonbinaryGhost
Summary: A thought occurred to her with a cold prickling across her shell and Hornet turned to Ghost’s mask still sitting broken in the water.Perhaps…Hollow let Hornet pull her hand away and she carefully plucked those white shards from the water, re-wrapping them in Ghost’s old cloak. Her motions were quick with a new purpose and the Hollow Knight stared at her, their confusion clear in the tilt of their head.“I have an idea,” she admitted, tucking the bundle in a silk bag under her cloak. A fragile hope had begun to rekindle in her chest. “There might be a way to get Ghost back.”She paused, then asked, “Do you want to come with me?”
Comments: 86
Kudos: 210





	1. Security in Practicality

**Author's Note:**

> [originally for chipper-smol's telephone game, in the vanilla 2 chain]
> 
> Hornet deals with survivor's guilt. Hollow finally gets a bath. Ghost is MIA

Hornet let out an almost imperceptible sigh as they reached the hot springs, the damp air warm against her shell. The journey from the Black Egg Temple to the Crossroad’s Hot Springs was not a long one, but it had taken her more than a day to reach it given her… charge.

Hornet glanced back at her sibling, something twisting in her shell at the sight of their battered form leaning heavily on their longnail by their one remaining arm. Their whole body shook as they panted for breath, bits of void leaking from the deep wounds in their side and the crack down their mask, despite the bandages of webbing Hornet had applied. The way they slumped weakly, like an old rag doll with the stuffing worked out of its joints, made Hornet’s heart ache. They looked scant inches from death.

Hornet did her best to mask her worry, trying to exude an air of calm confidence as she stood upright, ever ready to dart forward to catch them if they stumbled. She urged them forward with a hand wave, hesitant to touch them for fear of causing them more harm. Sometimes, when hurt so gravely, it was best for one to move for oneself if possible, since one knew what ways would hurt.

The tension in Hornet’s shoulders eased only once she helped lower the once Hollow Knight into the warm waters of the hot spring, offering her hand for support as they unsteadily waded into the water. She watched in wonder as they visibly relaxed into the warmth, the flow of void leaking from their injuries slowing as white flickers of light began to float around them. Hornet was relieved to see that the graveness of their injuries did not render them completely immune to the regenerative properties of the hot springs and she finally allowed herself the tiniest glimmer of hope. Maybe…maybe they would be alright.

She glanced down at the hard, cloak-wrapped bundle clutched under her arm. Carefully, as if afraid she’d break it further, Hornet unwrapped the shattered mask from the tattered grey cloak she’d swaddled it in. That strange, twisting feeling again clawed at her chest at the mask cracked perfectly in half cradled in her hands.

Ghost…

When she had swooped into the Black Egg Temple to aid them against their sibling, Hornet had possessed little hope for any of them to survive. At best, she’d hoped to defeat the Radiance, to vanquish the infection once and for all. At worst, she knew a slow, painful fall to the void or infection would be their only end as the Radiance’s calamity continued to blaze through what little remained of Hollownest. To be perfectly honest, she had thought hardly anything at all. She only knew there was an opening for her aid, a way to give Ghost the chance they needed to enter the Hollow Knight’s dream as they had with her mother. Survival had been, frankly, the last thing on her mind.

Yet, when she had awakened once more in that temple, soft white light seeping in through the shattered ceiling to replace the fading void and haze of infection, that traitorous emotion had crept into her shell. The veins of orange infection lacing the walls of the temple withered and died, fading to black before crumbling away. That almost painful stab of hope only grew sharper when she discovered her sibling, the Hollow Knight, sprawled across the cracked ground, void dripping from their missing arm and the deep pits in their shell, but somehow, miraculously, still alive.

Ghost, however, had not been so fortunate, and the nail of remorse that had lanced through her at the sight of their shattered mask had nearly brought Hornet to her knees.

It wasn’t fair. The three of them had done it. They had won. They had beat the Radiance and her infection. Together. So why, then, had she and the Hollow Knight survived, but Ghost had not?

Knowing it was futile but still harboring that foolish flicker of hope, Hornet lowered Ghost’s broken mask into a shallow edge of the spring. Maybe, if their mask were whole, Ghost could come back, as the Hollow Knight had.

The white shards stayed sharp and jagged in the murky waters, as inert and still as stone.

Hornet’s shoulders slumped and that childish hope sputtered and died in her chest.

The quiet slosh of moving water brought Hornet’s attention up to the Hollow Knight, surprised to find them moving about already as they carefully, hesitantly, shifted toward her. She blinked at the way the glowing light of the hot spring coiled around them, and for the briefest of heartbeats she imagined that light held a more yellow tinge, splaying out behind them in the Radiance’s starburst. She could almost imagine their eyes again alight… but no. No, the light was white and wispy, nothing more than steam, and the Hollow Knight’s one uncovered eye was a steady, empty black. The Radiance was gone. Hornet’s sibling was cured.

For a moment, Hornet put aside her disappointment over Ghost’s mask and allowed herself to revel in the relief and joy that zinged through her at the sight of the sibling she had long assumed lost to her alive, if not completely well. She searched their void-black eye for any flicker of light, as the mental image of their glowing-orange eyes seeping tears of infection refused to fade. She cringed as she recalled the way they had turned their nail on themself in a desperate attempt to cut that infection away, to prevent their body from being puppeted into hurting Ghost. She reached out a hand, not quite touching their white mask still half covered in bandages. She was not sure if her touch would be welcome, or if it would only cause her injured sibling greater distress.

“Hollow –“ she choked, surprised at the tightness in her throat. She swallowed. What was she going to say? ‘I’m glad you’re alive’? ‘I’m sorry for everything that happened’? Somehow, everything that came to mind felt inadequate and she fell back on the security of practicality. “Are you alright? Do you still hurt?”

Her sibling stared a moment, as if processing her words. Slowly, they lifted their sodden cloak to glance down at the bandages wrapped around them. Their right arm was still missing, long since eaten away by the infection and well beyond the hot spring’s ability to heal, but the dark void no longer bled from under the bandages. Hornet reached forward, intending to unwrap the webbing to take a closer look, to be certain they were no longer hurt, but the way her sibling went absolutely motionless at the movement froze her in place. She abruptly recalled that they were completely unaccustomed to such care, even prior to becoming the Hollow Knight, and the only sensation they had experienced for all this time was pain. Did they fear her touch, worried it would bring harm?

“I promise, I will not hurt you,” she assured them gently. “I wish only to remove the bandages. May I?”

Stare.

Then, ever so slightly, the barest nod of their mask.

Hornet carefully, oh so carefully, removed the bandages to reveal the scarred shell underneath. No longer open, bleeding wounds, the Hollow Knight’s injuries were little more than slightly duller grey scars along the perfect black of their carapace. However, Hornet had to stifle a flicker of sorrow when she unwrapped the bandage over the Hollow Knight’s eye and found their mask still cracked. She gently cupped their cheek, staring into their eyes as a confusing swirl of emotions eddied through her. The ache of hope in her chest was only sharpened by the dark coil of fear twisting and untwisting in her belly – the fear of doing too little, too late; of potentially discovering that her sibling was actually hollow after a fashion; the fear of them not. There was an uncomfortable itch of confusion somewhere in there too, at their shared survival, and a warm flicker of gratitude tainted with sorrow that they had, even if at Ghost’s expense, though it pained her to admit as much. But most of all was shame, and a steady, burning anger that pulsed in the pit of her belly at what had been done to her sibling, at what trials they had endured.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered. For what, she couldn’t quite find the words to say. How did one apologize for anything that had happened to her sibling? She knew none of what happened to them had been her fault – she had been far too young, too small, to prevent their binding. But she still felt the deepest shame at her continued inability – nay her refusal - to brake those bindings herself, at the role she played in even preserving them. A cold, fracturing pain broke her heart as she fully comprehended just how much they had suffered in all the time that had passed. How could one ever adequately apologize for that?

The Hollow Knight leaned slightly into her touch but showed no other sign of having heard her. Still, that small motion was enough to make her heart flutter. Her sibling was still there, somewhere, even if they were hurt. Even if they still felt the need to hide behind a mask of hollowness.

Her thumb brushed the jagged edge of the crack in their mask and Hornet’s mind began to search for ways to make things better for her sibling, needing to prove to them through actions that they truly were safe now. That she cared.

“I wonder if the Mask Maker could repair this,” she mused, her thoughts drifting to the strange recluse who lived above her home in Deepnest. She knew they had been the one to craft the Hollow Knight’s mask as they grew up, since the vessels were incapable of molting like an average bug. If they were still alive, maybe the Mask Maker could help heal her sibling.

A thought occurred to her with a cold prickling across her shell and Hornet turned to Ghost’s mask still sitting broken in the water.

Perhaps…

Hollow let Hornet pull her hand away and she carefully plucked those white shards from the water, re-wrapping them in Ghost’s old cloak. Her motions were quick with a new purpose and the Hollow Knight stared at her, their confusion clear in the tilt of their head.

“I have an idea,” she admitted, tucking the bundle in a silk bag under her cloak. A fragile hope had begun to rekindle in her chest. “There might be a way to get Ghost back.”

She paused, then asked, “Do you want to come with me?”


	2. Dissociation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It would not be the first time the Radiance tormented them with a dream of escape. She delighted in toying with their most secret hopes – ones the Knight themself remained largely unaware of. Hopes of not being forgotten, of being freed and welcomed back into a home they had never really had, of being safe, of defeating Her... Was this not more of the same?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hollow struggles with distinguishing old dreams from reality, and coming to terms with having survived. 
> 
> Another fairly heavy one dealing with unreality and mild flashbacks.

The Hollow Knight followed behind their Gendered Sibling mechanically, their footsteps falling silent on the uneven stone path as the two of them made their way to the stag station.

The Knight wasn’t there. Not really. They watched themself from somewhere to the right, somehow detached from their body.

Dreaming. 

They had to be dreaming. 

It would not be the first time the Radiance tormented them with a dream of escape. She delighted in toying with their most secret hopes – ones the Knight themself remained largely unaware of. Hopes of not being forgotten, of being freed and welcomed back into a home they had never really had, of being safe, of defeating Her... Was this not more of the same? 

The Knight’s steps slowed as their arm began to burn with an all too familiar pain. The infection. They could feel it crawling under their shell, burning at their side and arm and creeping up their throat with a cloying sweetness. Even through the numb haze that blanketed their thoughts, they could feel it eating away at them. They went completely still at the sensation and a cold fear clutched at their chest. They must be waking up now. The Radiance’s dreams were always free of pain and injury. She tortured them with what could have been to further hurt them with what was. Too long awake, and the Knight could numb the pain and fall into a thoughtless void. But with the reprieve of sleep, and the bitter-sweet dreams of comfort and warmth, the pain of her infection stayed fresh and sharp. That wasn’t to say that the Hollow Knight didn’t have dreams of pain and fear, but those nightmares were not of the Radiance’s domain. 

But the yellow haze of infection did not creep into their vision as it always did upon waking. Instead, the pain only grew worse. 

A nightmare then.

The pain grew until they wanted to scream, to clutch at the misery, but they didn’t. Couldn’t. They had no voice with which to utter even the quietest of sobs and they could feel the cold metal of the chains wrapping tight around them, the chill biting into their shell. The bindings would stop them from moving. Even in this nightmare, they were motionless in their suffering. Struggling too much would only make the pain worse. So, they held themself perfectly still, not even daring to breathe. This nightmare, too, would pass and they would awake in the cold and dark of the Temple, chained and alone, with the infection festering somewhere deep inside of them –

“Hollow?”

The voice of their Gendered Sibling cut the silence, slicing through the Hollow Knight’s muddled thoughts with a needle-like sharpness. Loud. Her voice was too loud and the Knight almost flinched as they felt as if the sound would shatter them. The weight of the chains wrapped impossibly tight around them vanished at her voice. The Hollow Knight forced their gaze to focus on their little sister, the simple task requiring a monumental effort as they dragged their attention from the pain. Something about their sister’s voice felt too…present to be a dream. 

A dream?

Could that be right…? 

When their sister was in their dreams, she was young and playful, just like she had been when they’d last seen her in person. Before they had been sealed away. Before her mother had gone to dream. This proud, serious spider standing before them was too real, too grown and strong and serious to be the innocent spiderling they had known so long ago. Suddenly, the Hollow Knight’s vision swam, and the ground swayed beneath them.

Burning. They were burning from somewhere inside. Their body moved almost without their permission, their left hand clutching at their right arm as it blazed in fiery misery. But instead of smooth chitin, their hand closed upon empty air. Their sudden panic hiccuped as they ran their hand down their side, feeling the uneven surface of their scarred shell. No infection. No burning cysts. But they could still feel it. That agony still seared through their shoulder as they clutched at where their arm used to be. No. This couldn’t be a dream. In the Radiance’s dreams, they were always unchanged from how they’d been prior to entering the Temple. She never bothered with how they might be if they ever actually escaped. Her dreams weren’t supposed to be realistic; they were meant to be idealizations of hope given form. And this was too subdued to be a nightmare. While they weren’t unhurt or unchanged, the Knight was healed and whole. This was too real, too solid, to be either a dream or nightmare. 

The Knight gripped their shoulder as a bitter-sweet relief washed through them, mingling with the pain. They still hurt, but the burning sensation became something solid they could hold onto and ground themself with. It hurt, so they couldn’t be dreaming. But they were free, so they couldn’t be in a nightmare. They weren’t in the Temple anymore; they weren’t being consumed by infection. Their healed scars, their missing arm…they were proof that they were free, that they’d survived the Radiance’s rage.

“Hollow, please look at me!”

The desperation in their sister’s distant voice dragged the Knight out of their giddy haze and they forced themself to look up into her mask. 

Up?

They blinked in confusion and glanced down at the hard stone beneath them, finding that they had collapsed to their knees at some point. When had that happened? They didn’t remember falling. They gradually realized that their vision was strangely blurry and something cold dripped down their mask. They reached up with numb fingers to wipe the sensation away, reveling in how easily they could do such a thing now, how readily their arm moved to their bidding without the chains binding them in place, without the Radiance dragging at their limbs. They glanced at their fingers, shocked to find semi-liquid void dripping from their eyes. Tears? 

Before entering the Black Egg Temple, the Hollow Knight would not have believed themself capable of crying, and once the Radiance had hurt them enough to finally make them openly weep, those tears had been thick and orange, thoroughly tainted with infection. But these tears were thin liquid void that evaporated into small black particles almost instantly. The sight may have once filled the Knight with dread ( _Do not feel_ ) but now it further cemented their relief. They were alive. And they could cry. 

“Are you alright?” their sister demanded, clearly not comprehending her sibling’s sudden breakdown. Her hands hovered a few inches away, as if she wanted to embrace them but wasn’t sure if she should. 

The Knight wiped away more tears as they nodded. Their fingers caught on the crack in their mask and they ran their fingertips over the shape of it in wonder. Another scar from the Radiance. But another piece of evidence that they’d survived. 

“Does the crack hurt?” she asked. The knight shrugged. If it did hurt, they could barely feel it over the relief that now hummed through them. 

“Well, don’t worry,” she soothed, her voice surprisingly gentle as she finally rested a hand on their good shoulder. “The Mask Maker can surely fix you up in no time. And then it’ll be like none of this ever happened.”

They went ridged at that, a cold dread they could barely comprehend icing through them. The Hollow Knight had assumed that they were going to the Mask Maker to try to repair their little sibling’s mask, not for them. To heal their mask and act as if none of this had happened…the thought chilled them. But then they had a bitter realization. Their scars, their cracked mask, their missing arm, were all imperfections, damage that had to be erased. They were meant to be the perfect, pure vessel, after all. These scars were testaments to their failures in the eyes of their sister. Of course, they should get rid of them.

The realization made the Hollow Knight retreat back into the numb safety of mindlessness, their mental barriers slamming back in place with the solidness of a sealed door. Their old mantras returned as a faint whisper in their mind. 

_Do not feel. Do not hope. Do not want…_

They stood at their sister’s prompting and slowly followed behind, once again burying their thoughts in a haze of void. They would be healed soon. They would be perfect and whole and empty again, just as before. That was a good thing. 

So why did the thought fill them with such bitter, hopeless disappointment?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted a night early because I'm impatient :3
> 
> I swear there will be happier/lighter chapters! I'm just a big sucker for angst and project too much onto these poor bugs.


	3. Ponderings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their walk to the Stag Station, Hornet and Hollow had passed more than a score of empty husks of bugs who had been infected, the once-citizens of Hallownest fully dead at last. It appeared that when the Radiance was defeated and the Infection destroyed, the bugs who had been thoroughly infected had died with Her. Yet here this tik-tik was, alive and scurrying around as if it had never been infected at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hornet starts wondering why some bugs appear to have recovered from the infection but others haven't. The Stag Beetle asks after his favorite little friend. 
> 
> CW for a brief description of cannibalism involving vengeflies, in the paragraph following the line "The motionless, dead eyes of an enraged vengefly king stared back at her."

The steady tick-tick-tick-tick-tick of tiny claws skittering over stone filled the air and Hornet lifted her mask toward the lip of rock hanging overhead. She spotted the flicker of movement almost instantly and blinked in surprise at the prickly white shell of a tik-tik moving amongst the dust and dry roots dangling from the bottom of the outcrop. It was one of the first living things she had seen since leaving the temple and she found herself staring at it in mild confusion. 

On their walk to the Stag Station, Hornet and Hollow had passed more than a score of empty husks of bugs who had been infected, the once-citizens of Hallownest fully dead at last. It appeared that when the Radiance was defeated and the Infection destroyed, the bugs who had been thoroughly infected had died with Her. Yet here this tik-tik was, alive and scurrying around as if it had never been infected at all.

The scrape of something larger moving over stone jerked Hornet out of her reverie and her gaze fell on the white mask of the Hollow Knight peering up at her through a gap in the floor that led to the cavern below. The Hollow Knight had reached up through that gap to deposit their nail near Hornet’s feet and were now using their newly freed arm to scrabble up behind their weapon. Hornet drew back to give her sibling room as they awkwardly crawled into the narrow space. Even kneeling, their large horns scraped the ceiling. The sound scared off the tik-tik and the Hollow Knight flinched at the dust and freed roots that rained down at the disturbance. Hornet stifled her own irritation at the Crossroad’s tight tunnels. The uneven ground, low ceilings, and twisting tunnels made moving quickly nearly impossible, even with her silk. But for her sibling, moving at all was a challenge. They were just too tall to stand up straight in most of the passageways, and having only one arm made crawling slower than a snail’s pace. She supposed they might be able to move faster if they didn’t have to drag their nail behind them the whole time. Unlike Hornet, they didn’t have extra limbs to hold their nail as they walked, and they didn’t appear to have a sheath like little Ghost had. 

“Would you like me to carry that for you?” she offered once her sibling got settled next to her. She would still have to drag the great-nail due to its size, but even with it and her own nail she would still have two hands free to help her climb. After several long seconds of silence, Hornet realized that an answer was not coming. Hollow stared at her as if waiting for her to order them to hand over the nail. A heavy sigh escaped her mask as she realized just how much time it might take for them to break away from a literal age of conditioning. She let the question go. If she insisted on taking their nail, she risked only enforcing the idea that they had to do whatever they were told.

The soft skittering sound returned to break the silence, and Hornet turned to watch the tik-tik begin to rummage around the rocky ceiling once more. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Hollow Knight hesitantly follow her gaze. They dismissed it immediately and dropped their attention back to Hornet. She got the sense that they were impatient to move out of the cramped caverns. 

“Right, you’re right,” she conceded. “We should keep moving. The Stag Station isn’t far from here. Just up this shaft and we’ll be at the entrance.”

They did nothing to acknowledge her words but followed readily enough when she began leading the way once more. Hornet’s thoughts lingered on the tik-tik as she climbed up the short stone ledge. Why was it that it seemed like some bugs could survive and recover from the Radiance’s rage, while others had not? Why had those who were so much sturdier and smarter been so violently consumed? 

A familiar sticky-sweet stench filled the air as Hornet reached the top of the ledge and a cold panic pulsed through her. Before she’d even processed the stench of Infection she had spun to face the source of the smell, leaping back and drawing her needle in preparation to strike whatever awaited the two of them. 

The motionless, dead eyes of an enraged vengefly king stared back at her. 

Hornet let out a shaky breath as she realized the source of the stench was not from the Infection itself, but rather the decaying bug. She relaxed her grip on her needle and peered closer at the large corpse. Massive circular gaps in its shell showed where the Infection had eaten through its body and grown into huge cysts. But now that the Infection was gone, the cysts had vanished to leave impossibly large chunks of the vengefly missing. Smaller vengeflies fluttered around the corpse, completely unperturbed by Hornet’s threat display as they fed on the long-dead bug. Hornet backed up further, murmuring a warning to Hollow as they climbed up beside her. They glanced at the dead vengefly and quickly turned away, their shoulders tensing. The sight of the vengeflies feeding on the previously infected bug disturbed Hornet in a way she couldn’t explain. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen the corpses of infected bugs before – indeed they had just passed several on their walk from the hot springs. And it wasn’t as if seeing the other bugs eating the cadaver should bother her. Such sights were not uncommon in the ruins of Hallownest. Food was food, and a mindless creature such as the vengeflies could not care less what that food might once have been. Yet her stomach twisted with disgust at the scene.

And how were there even vengeflies left to feed on it? Like the tik-tik, the fluttering bugs seemed completely normal and unaffected from the sudden disappearance of the Infection, despite the fact that their current meal hadn’t survived the very same calamity.

“Hollow, do you have any idea how some bugs seem to have recovered but not others?” she asked on impulse, too overwhelmed by the sight before her to really think about the words coming out of her mouth.

The Hollow Knight tensed at her question, staring at her with scarcely concealed panic. Their expression immediately yanked Hornet out of her thoughts. Guilt flashed through her and she mentally kicked herself. Hollow probably didn’t want to think about the radiance and Her Infection, especially after their first-hand experience with it. It hadn’t even been a full sleep cycle since they’d been freed and here she was thoughtlessly dragging it back to the forefront. 

“Never mind,” she rushed to sooth. She scrambled to find something to stem the panic attack she could see slowly tensing their shoulders. “Hollow, look at me.”

They did, their gaze slowly coming into focus on her mask. 

“You’re okay,” she stated, making sure her tone came out solid and factual. “I promise you are safe now. The Radiance is gone and can not hurt you anymore. You survived.”

She felt like she had already said this within the last hour, but she continued to insist on it. If Hollow was struggling to stay grounded, she would remind them as many times as they needed.

Hollow’s hand crept up to cover the crack in their mask and their gaze sank from hers. They were trembling. Hornet nearly winced at the pain that pulsed through her chest as she watched the way Hollow traced the crack in their mask with their fingertips. The injury must only drag up the memories of their battle with the Radiance. With such constant, inescapable reminders of their pain at the Radiance’s hands, Hollow must be struggling immensely to stay present. After a moment, however, Hollow’s shoulders lifted and fell in a heavy sigh and they slowly nodded their mask at her words – the most expression they had shown beyond trembling terror. The simple movement eased the knot of anxiety coiling in Hornet’s belly and she silently offered them a hand. They stared at it a moment, but eventually took it. Their fingers trembled against her own and their shell was icy to the touch, but she didn’t draw away. She bent slightly to take up their nail from where it still rested on the ground and almost staggered under the weight of it. The blade might look narrow and delicate, but Pale Beings it was heavy. She managed to brace the nail over a shoulder, making its weight and size a little more manageable. Still holding Hollow’s hand, Hornet lead the way through the entrance to the safety of the Stag Station, escaping the sweet stench of the rotting vengefly king. 

Their footsteps echoed back at them in the open space and Hollow was finally able to stand up straight. Hornet glanced over the station, checking for any sign of danger. When nothing sprang out at them, she let her tense shoulders ease and she tried to remember what the station had been like before the King had shut the Stagways down to enforce quarantine. She thought she could remember the ringing of bells and quiet conversations, the warmth of other bugs pressing near, the scent of unfamiliar pheromones on the air. But now the air was cold and still. The only smell was that of damp stone and cold iron, and the soft drip of water slowly leaking somewhere created a lonely percussion in the wide space. Hornet hadn’t been to a Stag Station since she was a spiderling and she had assumed that all of the Stag beetles had long since succumbed to the Infection. But when little Ghost had started opening the gates blocking the tunnels she had begun to hear the occasional ring of a bell and the thundering steps of a running stag. 

Hornet leaned Hollow’s nail against the single iron bench still standing in the middle of the station. Hollow gently pulled their hand from hers as she began to wander the room, reading the aged signs hanging about. Many of them were too worn by time and damp to be legible, but those that were bore the names of different stations and where in the kingdom they were located. 

For the first time, Hornet actually considered what station she should ask for. 

Her first instinct was to go to the one right next to her old home in Deepnest, but a glance at her ridiculously tall sibling convinced her otherwise. If they were struggling here in the Crossroads, they would have a terrible time navigating the even narrower meandering tunnels of Hornet’s home. Was there another station near the Mask Maker that would be easier for Hollow?

It took Hornet a moment to notice that Hollow was swaying ever so slightly as if struggling to stay upright, their mask had dipping somewhat.

“Are you tired?” 

Hollow’s head bobbed back up as if jerked by a string and they snapped to attention. Hornet’s question hadn’t been necessary. It was as clear as an uoma that her sibling was fighting not to doze off on their feet. But she thought that asking them to acknowledge their own needs instead of simply assuming it for them might help Hollow learn to express themself. She repeated her question in case Hollow hadn’t heard her. This time, after a few seconds, Hollow answered with a nod.

“You can rest on the bench,” she suggested, careful to keep her tone neutral so they wouldn’t mistake it for an order. They glanced down at the short bench then back up at her. She noticed their hand absently creep up to hold their side, their thumb tracing the line of a scar, but they eventually sat. Their knees almost came up to their chest because the bench was so low, and Hornet had to stifle the urge to chuckle at the tentative way they held themself.

“It does seem rather small, does it not?” Hornet hummed and Hollow tilted their mask at her in a distinctly sarcastic way, as if to say “Really? I would have never guessed.” The expression gave Hornet an unexpected jolt of joy and she turned away to hide the sudden amusement, worried they’d think she was laughing at them. She returned to reading the signs, weighing her options. Hollow’s need for rest rose to the top of her list of priorities. They needed a safe place for them to sleep, which eliminated most of the stations she recognized. Even with the Infection gone, there were still any number of unknown threats lingering about the kingdom. The only place she could think of that had been threat free even during the Infection had been Dirtmouth.

“How about we find you somewhere to rest before looking for the Mask Maker?”

Hollow made no motion to indicate that they heard her, but Hornet moved to the edge of the platform to check the tunnel. Sure enough, the heavy iron gate that had kept the tunnel closed off for an age was gone and the tunnel itself appeared clear before it twisted out of sight. She turned to the bell hanging near the platform and was about to ring it when a sudden thought occurred to her. 

“Would you like to ring the bell?” she nodded toward the copper device in question. “The sound lets the Stag beetle know there is someone waiting at the station. Then the Stag follows the sound and gives us a ride to another station somewhere else in the kingdom.”

She wasn’t certain how much of an explanation Hollow actually needed, but she knew there was a good chance they had never been to a Stag Station before. They glanced between her and the bell, then leaned forward to tentatively tap the bell with a claw. The tiniest ‘ting’ rang out and they sat up straight as if startled. Hornet let herself giggle just a little bit at their reaction.

“You’ll have to ring it louder than that,” she chuckled. “There’s no chance the Stag could hear that little sound.”

This time Hollow slapped the bell more forcefully and a bright ringing chime echoed down the smooth walls of the tunnel. The sound seemed to bring Hollow some measure of delight and they turned to Hornet with an expectant expression, as if requesting permission to do it again. She nodded and they gleefully rang the bell a few more times, finding that hitting it in different ways created different tones. Hornet remembered doing the very same thing when she had been young, and a bittersweet smile played across her face hidden beneath her mask. She wondered if Hollow had ever once had the opportunity for such simple play. They had been through so much yet experienced so little. Hornet supposed the same was true for her, after a fashion. She had only had a few years with her mother before she’d gone to dream, and only a few years of peace after that before the Infection had begun taking away everyone she knew. Hornet’s jaw clenched in anger at the thought. Both of them had lost a childhood to the Radiance and her Infection.

The thundering steps of a running stag rumbled through the ground and Hornet started in surprise at the many-legged beetle that slid to a stop before them. Until this moment, she hadn’t been entirely certain the Stag would even answer their call. 

The stag appeared equally surprised to find the two of them at its station. It regained its composure quickly, however. 

“Welcome to the Crossroads Station,” the Stag rumbled, his voice gravely with age. “It has been quite a while since anyone aside from the Little One rang my bell. Is there somewhere you wish to travel?”

“You knew Ghost?” Hornet asked, leaping at the chance to hear about her little sibling. Hollow, too, lifted their head at this. The Stag’s single horn glinted as he peered up at her and he tensed, as if suspicious of her. 

“The small one with a square mask,” Hornet clarified. “They’re our sibling. I was under the impression that they were the one opening your Stations. I hope they treated you well.”

At the mention of them being siblings, the suspicion flowed out of the Stag and he relaxed into a more comfortable stance.

“I did not realize they have family,” the old Stag said at last. “They never speak a word, though they appear to like my explanations of the places we travel. They are a good sort – though perhaps a bit troubled. I will often find them sleeping on the benches in my stations. They are always alone, so I assumed…”

He trailed off meaningfully and Hornet dropped her gaze at the silent accusation. She was certain he wondered why Ghost was wandering around such dangerous places all alone when they had family that should have been taking care of them. Hornet’s secondary arms; the ones she always kept hidden under her cloak; fidgeted with the silk pouch containing Ghost’s broken mask.

“They sound like a good passenger,” she offered at last. This raised the Stag’s eyebrow.

“I dare say, I might consider them a friend,” he rumbled fondly. “They opened so many stations and gave me the opportunity to travel the breadth of this kingdom once more. They even brought me the evidence of there being hope for my people having escaped outside into the great world. The Little One is a rare sort of bug, and one I am deeply honored to know.” 

Hornet warmed at this description of Ghost. Her own experiences with them had always been rather…tense. She knew them most as a fighter. To hear about other parts of them both delighted her and filled her with dismay at what might be lost if she and Hollow failed. 

“Ah but I have prattled on long enough,” the Stag mused. “Any friends of the Little One are friends of mine. If you are eager to travel the tunnels, just step up to the platform and tell me where you would like to go.”

“Do you have a station in Dirtmouth?” She asked. “We need a place for my sibling and I to rest.”

“Certainly.”

Hornet beckoned for Hollow to join her and they stood stiffly, taking their nail and slinging it over their shoulder as Hornet had done earlier. The Stag looked up at Hollow and for a moment Hornet feared he would say they were too tall to ride.

“Do I know you, Tall One?”

Hollow and Hornet both gave a start of surprise at the question, but the Stag slowly shook his head.

“No,” he answered to himself. “I am certain I would remember one such as you. But you are familiar somehow.”

“Perhaps it is family resemblance?” Hornet offered.

“That could be,” the Stag nodded at last. “You do have the same graveness about you.”

Without further ado, Hornet climbed up into one of the cushioned seats attached to the saddle on the Stag’s back. Hollow lingered on the platform. Hornet offered to take their nail again and this time they relented, passing her the massive weapon. Arm free, they were able to climb up into one of the seats behind Hornet without much trouble. Like with the bench, they practically had to fold themself in half just to fit. There did appear to be some sort of belt to strap around their waist, so Hornet wasn’t too concerned about them falling off. 

“Are you both settled in?” the Stag asked. Hollow gave Hornet a nod once the belt was secure and she turned back around to tie her own. At her confirmation that they were ready the Stag leapt into motion with shocking speed, shoving Hornet back in her seat and stealing the breath from her lungs. 

The ride flew by in an instant. Once or twice Hornet thought she saw the entrance to other branching tunnels blur past, but the Stag mostly stayed on a large central pathway that sloped steadily upwards. The speed of the Stag rivaled even that of her silk, but Hornet privately thought her silk would make a far smoother ride. She felt like she might bounce right off of the beetle’s back if not for the belt holding her in place. A quick glance behind her showed a startled Hollow clutching their great nail to their chest to keep it from falling off. 

With a sudden turn, the Stag slowed to a stop at the lip of another platform. The abrupt lack of motion rocked her forward then back against her seat. 

“Welcome to the surface!” the Stag beetle announced brightly.

Eager to get off the Stag, Hornet fumbled with the belt and hopped down to the platform, her whole body still humming from the jostling ride. Hollow eased themself down carefully while Hornet turned to give the Stag a grateful bow. 

“Thank you so much for the ride.”

“My pleasure,” he rumbled, his tone genuine and warm. “The town here on the surface should have a safe place for you two to rest.”

With a wave farewell, Hornet and Hollow turned to leave. They were just about to step up onto the simple elevator that would lift them to the main part of the station when the Stag called out to them. Hornet turned with a questioning tilt of her mask. The Stag shifted on his numerous feet, his brow furrowed in thought as if weighing his next words carefully. 

“If you are the Little One’s siblings,” he started at last. “Do you know where they are? I have not seen them since that Infection faded. I know it has not been all that long, but I cannot shake this dreadful feeling that something terrible has happened to them.”

Guilt washed through Hornet at the question and she clutched Ghost’s broken mask to her chest under her cloak as her thoughts scattered in a thousand different directions. What should she tell him? That Ghost was probably dead? That she’d helped get them killed? 

“We-“ her voice cracked a little and she cleared it before starting again. “We don’t know where they are. But we are looking for them.”

“Have they done something wrong?”

“No,” she shook her head. “But they might be in danger. We are trying to find them and make sure they are safe.” 

The Stag considered this for a moment. 

“If there is anything I can do to help you, I am just a bell away,” he said at length. “I would be happy to take you anywhere in the kingdom until you find them.”

Hornet managed to stammer out another thank you, touched at the deep concern and earnestness in the Old Stag’s voice. She and Hollow both gave the Stag a bow before stepping up onto the platform and rising out of the Old Stag’s sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one was so long! Hope y'all enjoyed.


	4. Light and Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beetle trembled as she remembered the thoughts that had blazed through her. She could recall lifting her pick to swing at the bug who the Light demanded she kill. The little pale thing with the white mask. The one who came to listen to her sing. The one who tapped the crystal in tune to her song.
> 
> She shuddered in horror and wrapped her arms around herself. She began to hum quietly, taking comfort in the familiar tune and the rumble in her throat. 
> 
> There had been another, too. The spider in red, who would sometimes bring her food and sing with her. The light had not commanded Myla to kill her as viciously as it had the little one, but that urge to harm had still lifted her pick to attack. Had she…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's taking a step away from Hornet and Hollow for a bit!  
> Needless to say, Myla is having a very strange day.

Not a pleasant dream, this.

A bright, blinding, burning light surrounded the small beetle, cradling her in its loving embrace. It filled her lungs with a sticky sweetness, and with each breath she could feel that light stirring a warmth in her chest that felt somewhat like love and somewhat like rage. 

It was agony.

It was bliss.

Once, long ago, the beetle might have fought against the numbing rage that the Light stirred in her. But now she was simply too tired to struggle. She could feel parts of herself fading away as the Light consumed her thoughts and memories greedily, replacing them with an almost primal need to hunt and to hurt. Her thoughts became filled with the heat of it. Her ears rang with its enraged howls. At first, the beetle had been able to distinguish the Light’s vicious demands and her own desires, but now, she was that Light. She could not tell where her own suffering ended and the Light’s began. And she didn’t care to. She lost herself in that endless glow.

But then, the blinding Light vanished as abruptly as a winking lumafly and the beetle was plunged into darkness.

She floated in that cold sea for what could have been an eternity. For the first time in what felt like an age, her thoughts were horrifyingly, blessedly silent. After the constant noise and heat of the golden Light, the cold darkness was almost comfortable. Before long, however, an uncomfortable sensation intruded upon her silent sanctuary.

Something hard and pointy dug into her cheek and side, the sharp spikes clawing into tender flesh unprotected by her shell. The sensation dragged her to the surface of the black sea and the beetle dimly realized she was asleep. But the void of sleep was so comfortable and quiet that she fought to return to that oblivion. 

The uncomfortable jaggedness of whatever she was laying upon was insistent, however, and no matter how hard she tried to again reach that dark unconsciousness, she kept bobbing back up into the lighter grey-black fuzziness between wake and sleep. With it came a collection of new discomforts – a piercing headache that throbbed behind her eyes, a soul-deep throbbing in her limbs, a nauseating sweetness on her tongue. A small groan escaped the beetle as she finally came-to and she gingerly pushed herself up onto her knees. Her joints ached in protest and she hissed at the pain. It felt like every muscle in her body had been wrung like a wet rag and left to dry.

She found herself laying in a sharp nest of softly glowing pink crystal.

What had happened?

Her hand crept up to her aching head as she tried to remember before the Light.

Digging. She could remember digging, digging, digging endlessly until her arms were numb and her hands were blistered and her mind hummed from the repetitive endlessness of her task. It had brought her pleasure at first. But then it hadn’t. And still she’d kept digging. What had she been looking for? There had been something calling to her from deep in the crystal – snippets of a song half heard that spurred her on. But she’d never found it. How long had she dug?

And then…then something had begun to burn in her thoughts, filling her with a foreign anger and an unfamiliar urge to harm. To kill…someone. Who? 

_Kill it! Kill the empty one!_

The beetle trembled as she remembered the thoughts that had blazed through her. She could recall lifting her pick to swing at the bug who the Light demanded she kill. The little pale thing with the white mask. The one who came to listen to her sing. The one who tapped the crystal in tune to her song.

She shuddered in horror and wrapped her arms around herself. She began to hum quietly, taking comfort in the familiar tune and the rumble in her throat. 

There had been another, too. The spider in red, who would sometimes bring her food and sing with her. The light had not commanded Myla to kill her as viciously as it had the little one, but that urge to harm had still lifted her pick to attack. Had she…? 

“Oh, bury my mother, pale and slight,” she sang softly, her voice cracking somewhat. Her throat felt dry and her tongue thick but she continued, the sound slowly banishing the haze that still clung to her thoughts and grounding her in the moment. “Bury my father with his eyes shut tight. Bury my sisters two by two, and then when you’re done, let’s bury me too…” 

She hadn’t killed them. The little pale bug nor the spider. At least, she didn’t believe so. She remembered that blind desperation to kill, followed by a consuming, agonizing frustration when the swing of her pick had missed both of them. The pale bug had fled. The spider had vanished on a line of thread. They had left her alone in the Light. But now that Light was gone, and she was herself again.

Myla’s gaze fell on her pick laying on the crystal-strewn ground. The sight of the tool stirred a warm feeling of nostalgia. Her mother had gifted the pick to Myla when she’d come of age to work in the crystal mines. She had been so proud and excited to finally get to follow in her parent’s steps. The work was hard but gratifying, and the melody of pick against crystal sent her soul ringing. The voices of the other miners rising in song around her had blended so beautifully with the chime of metal and the hum of crystal.

She reached for the smooth handle of the old pick. She was a miner. Just like her mother and father before her. 

_Bury my mother pale and slight. Bury my father with his eyes shut tight…_

The lyrics of the song chimed into her head as she picked up the tool of her trade and she frowned. Her mother had died in a mining accident not long after giving the pick to Myla, and her father had fallen to that strange infection shortly thereafter. Then…everyone else had followed, and Myla fled. Myla went cold as she realized that there were probably no miners left. All of the others had fallen to the infection long before she had. And no one ever returned from the Light.

But...hadn’t she?

She had been Infected. There could be no other explanation for the change that had come over her. There had been a blinding Light in her mind. A bright burning heat that had bled into her vision and cradled her thoughts in a gentle, smothering embrace. She had been Infected, but she was still here, trembling and weak but somehow still alive. Could there be others like her? 

Myla returned to humming softly under her breath, her thoughts still feeling fuzzy and impossible to focus. She should go back to the mines and search for other survivors. But as she got to her feet, Myla’s head spun nauseatingly, and she had to lean on her pick for support. She squeezed her eyes shut against the wave of dizziness, little bursts of light flashing behind her eyes. She wouldn’t get far like this. She needed somewhere safe to rest, to make sure she was not still sick, and to build back the strength to return to the mines. Even before the Crystal Peaks had been overrun by the Infected, it had been a dangerous place for the unwary, full of pitfalls and unstable ground. It could only be worse now, without the maintenance of metal platforms that had once provided structural support to the complex network of tunnels.

She needed somewhere to rest and recover.

Using her pick as a cane until the wave of dizziness passed, Myla made her way to distant entrance of the cave she had spent an unfathomable amount of her life in. There weren’t many places she could think of that would still be safe, and even fewer that she had been to in person. But, long ago, her mother had mentioned a small town on the surface near the mines. If that little town still stood, it was as good a place as any to seek shelter. If it was still standing, maybe someone there might even know what had happened to the other miners, and how Myla could have recovered from the Infection. 

Myla wasn’t certain how to get to the town. But it was on the surface, right? All she should have to do is go up. She’d get there eventually.

\---

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

The languid percussion echoed around the narrow caverns, providing a soft background melody not unlike the easy rhythm of a pick striking stone. Myla crept forward through the darkness of an unfamiliar cave with her old mining pick held tight to her chest, her pulse thrumming faster than a vengefly’s wings under her shell. At some point her lumafly lantern had broken, and she hadn’t noticed until after she’d left her glowing cave. Now the only light was the soft pink glow of a crystal Myla had thought to bring with her.

She shuffled forward, testing the ground in front of her for solid purchase before allowing her weight to settle for each step. She had never left the mines of the Crystal Peaks before and the lack of well known-and oft-trod paths made Myla unspeakably nervous. But she needed to leave that cave – the place that had almost become her tomb. The thought sent a chill of fear spider-walking down her shell and she shuddered. She should be dead…

Myla violently shook her head to clear it as her thoughts threatened to return to that glimmer of light in her mind. She feared if she lingered on the memory too long the Light would ensnare her once more.

Too anxious to worry about keeping silent, Myla began to hum quietly to herself as she picked her way along. There was no use worrying about how she had survived. She had, and now she needed to find somewhere safe, away from the mines. Once she was strong enough, she could return and look for others.

“Oh, bury my mother, pale and slight,” she sang softly, her voice cracking somewhat. The words echoed back at her, distorted by the odd shape of the tunnel to sound almost louder than the source. “Bury my father with his eyes shut tight. Bury my sisters two by two, and then when you’re done, let’s bury me too.”

Something rumbled through the ground under Myla’s feet. It vibrated through the stone, distant but growing like a rockslide or a cave in. Myla went motionless as the sound seemed to pass right below her and then fade in the far distance as suddenly as it had appeared. Her chest ached and she realized she was holding her breath as her heart hammered in her thorax. She let it out in a shuddering sigh, continuing her path with tentative steps. 

“Ohh, bury the knight with her broken nail, bury the lady, lovely and pale,” she sang as she tested another foothold. It felt sturdy enough and she moved another foot forward. “Bury the priest in his tattered gown, then bury the beggar with his shining cro-“

“Watch out!”

Her song cut off in a strangled yelp as the ground beneath her probing foot crumbled away. Myla scrabbled for balance, but she was already slipping down with the loose stone. Before she could even think to panic, something caught her under the arm and dragged her back onto solid stone just as the rock fell with a deafening clatter down a steep cliff. Terror froze her in place, and she could only clutch at her chest as she gasped for breath, her gaze fixed on the spot she had been standing not a moment before, where now there was only empty air. 

“My, that was a close one,” came a cheery voice from beside her after a few long moments of startled silence. Myla jumped and managed to drag her attention from the cliff to the bug who had rescued her. 

In the faint glow of her crystal, she could really only make out his white, oval-shaped mask and a blue bandana tied about his head. His mask tilted down toward her and she thought she could see the eyes behind it crinkle up in a smile. 

“Best watch your footing in a treacherous place like this,” he warned jovially. “Though, these Crossroads are far safer now than they’ve been in a long time. Are you alright?”

“F-f-fine, thank you,” Myla stammered out, her stutter quite pronounced after her fright. The bug released her arm and took a step back, giving her the space to collect herself. She took a deep breath to help sooth her nerves and peered closer at the helpful new bug, taking in his long legs and curved blue shell. She guessed he might be a beetle like her, but he was far taller than most other beetles she knew. 

“Thank you fah-for c-c-catching me,” she said after a moment. “I was qui-quite lucky you happened by.”

“Hardly luck,” chuckled the bug. “My name is Quirrel. I heard your song and thought I’d come investigate. You are the first other bug I have seen since the Infection faded.”

So, she had recovered from the Infection! And he’d said the Infection faded. Did that mean the dreadful Light was gone for good? A giddy relief swept through Myla at the revelation, but then the new bug’s words fully sank in. 

“I’m the fa-first?” she asked, surprised. “A-a-are there not others who rec-recovered?” 

“None that I have come across.”

Myla fell silent at that. If the Infection was gone, shouldn’t there be other bugs who had recovered aside from her? The chances of this bug having gone through the Crystal Peaks was slim, so he might not know if there were others who had been cured.

“May I ask your name?”

Myla gave a small start, having almost forgotten that the new bug, Quirrel, was still there.

“Myla,” she answered automatically. 

“A pleasure to meet you, Myla,” he greeted formally with a funny little bow. The tip of his bandana fell over his face and hung in front of his eyes when he straightened back up and Myla almost giggled as he went cross-eyed to stare at the dangling corner of cloth. He reached up to straighten the bandana as he asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be on your way to Dirtmouth, would you?” 

Myla would be lying if she said she knew exactly where she was going, and she didn’t know the name of the town she had originally set out for. She had climbed to the top of the large cavern just outside her cave in the vague hopes of stumbling across the surface town, but she wasn’t certain she was even heading in the right direction now that the first cavern had ended, and she had been forced to take a side tunnel. After a moment, Myla bobbed her head in a nervous nod. This stranger seemed nice enough, but she wasn’t used to talking with others, or having others take an interest in her business. Granted, Myla’s business was usually just digging rocks. 

“I am on my way there myself in the hopes of meeting up with an old friend,” Quirrel informed her, gesturing vaguely with a hand. “Would you like to travel with me? The way up to the surface is not far from here. Perhaps you could teach me that lovely song of yours on the way?”

This time she scarcely hesitated before giving an eager nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your comments! It makes me incredibly happy to see people getting excited over this fic!!
> 
> I'm going to be working some ridiculous hours this upcoming week, so updates might to come a little more irregularly depending on if this new schedule becomes a regular thing and I get burned out. I do promise Hornet and Hollow will be back in the next chapter though!


	5. Lives Half Lived

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Knight stood up straighter and gazed around the room. They could almost imagine the space lit in the cold blue glow of a lumafly lantern, the soft hum of conversation or shuffling feet as two bugs puttered about their lives. What must it have been like?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hollow and Hornet get an unexpected reunion!

“Thank you for your hospitality.”

The voice of the Knight’s sister drifted in through the open door. Elderbug's quiet voice rumbled in after hers, assuring her that offering an unoccupied house was no trouble at all. The Hollow Knight was only half listening as they stood in the center of what was considered a ‘large’ room in Dirtmouth (the space would scarcely qualify as a linen closet in the White Palace). The Knight looked around themself at the remains of a life half lived. The front door had opened into a sitting room filled with old furniture, each chair and sofa covered in a sheet or blanket of a variety of colors, as if whomever covered them had simply thrown on whatever they could find. A plethora of bric a brac cluttered most of the flat surfaces of the home. Shelves and end tables were filled to bursting with miniature figurines of bugs and animals, decorative plates and cups with intricate filigree painted on the rims hung on the walls, and tablet cases overflowed with poorly organized stone tablets and the rare book of spider-silk paper. But what really drew the Knight’s eye was a collection of small picture frames that stood on the mantle of the central chimney. The Knight cast a quick glance over their shoulder to ensure their sister wasn’t watching as she continued to chat with Elderbug. Finding her occupied, they strode over to the mantelpiece. 

A thick layer of dust blanketed everything, including the stone floor, and it billowed up in little plumes as the Knight’s tattered cloak trailed over it. Some part of the Knight’s mind scolded them for leaving tracks through the dust – a perfect being left no mess and no trace – but they managed to ignore their quiet misgivings. Instead of standing in the middle of the room without touching anything, Knight leaned their nail carefully against the wall in order to free up their hand and reverently picked up one of the small picture frames. It was heavier than it looked, with silvery metal woven in intricate knotwork around the edge. The Knight used the corner of their torn cloak to wipe it free of dust. They somewhat anticipated some kind of landscape or still-life based on the rest of the home's decorations.

It was not.

It was a portrait.

The Knight stared down at the tiny painting of a small bug. A cricket, perhaps? The Knight couldn’t even begin to guess at how old the picture was, but the bug in it looked young and happy. They stared at it a moment, the claw of their thumb lightly tracing the cheerful tilt of the bug's antennae, before gently returning the frame to its place upon the mantle. They tapped the metal frame until it lined up exactly with the markings it had left in the dust. Once it was returned, the Knight picked up another. This one featured the same bug, perhaps older, posed with another. This painting looked more professionally done – the lines cleaner, the colors brighter, the shading more realistic. The bugs within were holding hands and wore flowers woven into crowns around their heads. A ceremony of some kind? The third painting depicted the same two bugs sitting at a beautiful blue lake, a colorful blanket spread out beneath them. The fourth –

“Hollow?” 

The Knight jumped when their sister seemed to materialize out of thin air next to them. They wished she would stop doing that.

“What are you looking at?”

They turned the frame so she could see the painting within.

“Oh,” she mused, taking the frame to peer at the painting more closely. “These must be the previous owners of this house.”

The Knight stood up straighter and gazed around the room. They could almost imagine the space lit in the cold blue glow of a lumafly lantern, the soft hum of conversation or shuffling feet as two bugs puttered about their lives. What must it have been like?

The Knight realized that they genuinely hadn’t the faintest idea what an average bugs’ life was like in Hallownest, either before or after the infection. The Knight’s life had revolved around training and sacrifice. They had given this kingdom every part of themself without knowing even the most basic of things about its residents. Even if the Hollow Knight hadn’t been “hollow” (something they were only beginning to come to terms with admitting), could their sacrifice really have been considered a loss of life? They had never really lived. But these bugs in the old paintings… they’d had a life here. Loved ones and friends they cared about, who cared about them in turn; things that brought them joy or irritation; dreams and aspirations. And now all that was left of them were dusty paintings and a slowly decaying home, patiently waiting for the residents who would never return. 

What was the Knight doing here?

What gave them the right to have survived when so many others hadn’t?

A cold pain burrowed into the Knight’s thoughts and they blinked to find they had begun scratching at the uneven edges of their healing carapace, their claws digging painfully into their shell. With great difficulty, they forced their grip to loosen and they took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds as their sister had instructed them the first time they had panicked in front of her. Their shell felt cold and prickly, like hundreds of nits were burrowing under the chitin, but the Knight resisted the urge to continue scratching it even as they twitched in discomfort. What if their sister noticed and gave them another of those pained looks?

Their sister returned the frame to the mantelpiece, off-center from where it had been before, and wiped the dust off of her hands. The Knight’s fingers twitched to fix it, but they held their hand still at their side. 

“Well,” she said at length as she turned in place to look over the room. “We’ll only be here for a cycle or two, so there is no real point in cleaning the place up. Let’s just find you somewhere to sleep.”

The thought of sleeping made the Knight’s stomach twist in knots and they stayed rooted where they stood as their sister began to poke around. The Knight was exhausted, their vision blurry and their thoughts heavy. But they didn’t want to sleep. They didn’t want to dream…

_Do not want…_

“Ah, here we are!” Came their sister’s triumphant cry from somewhere overhead. Her mask popped up from over the ledge of a loft opposite the front door. “It looks like this used to be the nestroom. There’s a comfortable looking nest up here that should be big enough for you.”

The Knight picked up their nail out of habit and made their way over to where their sister looked down at them. If the Knight stood up straight, they would be able to see into the loft with ease. But straightening their back and neck hurt – like a thick iron band tightening around their chest and hooks pulling at their shoulders. Old muscles put to new use now that they were freed from the chains that had kept them suspended for so long. The dark memories flickered at the edge of their thoughts but this time the Knight managed to skirt around them, leaving the memories as uncomfortable impressions instead of overwhelming images. 

Their sister pointed out a ladder carved directly into the stone of the wall that the Knight could use to awkwardly clamber up to the loft after passing their nail up to her. The Knight was working out a way to climb around with only one arm, but after scrabbling and crawling through the Crossroads their whole body ached in protest to the new movements. Just the few feet it took to get to the top of the ladder and roll into the loft left the Knight winded. 

The dust was even thicker here, leeching the space of any color it might have once had. But at the very back of the curved space was a large half-circle window that took up the entirety of the back wall. Muffled light from the lumafly lantern in the street below filtered in through the grime on the glass to illuminate the space in a cool glow. The Knight stared at the window, filled with the strange desire to wipe the dust from the glass and simply watch the world pass below.

“Ah-Achoo!!!!”

The sudden explosion of sound startled the Knight so badly they actually jumped, knocking their horns on the curved ceiling. They stared at their sister in confusion, never having heard any bug make such a sound before. She reached under her mask to rub at her eyes as she waved a placating hand at the Knight. 

“It was just a sneeze,” she snuffled. “All this dust is making my nose itch like no other.

The Knight blinked. 

What was a nose?

She turned back to the pile of blankets that filled the circular, cushioned nest tucked under the window. This one was nicer than the nest the Knight had slept in at the White Palace. Rather than a flat, cushioned pallet, this nest had a large circular bottom enclosed in a curved, plush canopy. The Knight supposed it might give the illusion of a comfortable burrow to bugs most familiar with living underground. 

“I’m going to go shake these off outside. Do you want to help?”

The Knight automatically moved to do so, but their sister held up her hand to stop them and repeated the question, emphasizing “want”. The Knight froze and forced themself to actually consider it as a question instead of an order. They were sore and tired. They didn’t want to have to climb that ladder into the loft again. They didn’t want to help.

The Knight’s shell went cold and prickly again as they realized this, as they allowed themself to acknowledge a want. They rushed to snatch the blankets from their sister and immediately slid off the edge of the loft to land on their feet as their old mantras whispered in their mind.

_Do not feel._  
Do not hope.  
Do not want. 

They stopped in front of the door as they realized they weren’t entirely certain what they were supposed to do. This was not the kind of thing their Father would have ever instructed them to do – chores and daily tasks like cooking and cleaning were considered beneath the importance of their relentless training. There was a buzzing in their ears, and they struggled to focus past the noise as they trembled.

“Hollow wait!” The ringing morphed into their sister’s voice. She used a strand of silk to rappel down to the Knight. “You do not have to help if you do not want to,” she intoned, meeting their eyes with an uncomfortable intensity. The Knight’s gaze sought the floor to avoid the pressure of returning her stare. They weren’t used to this – to so many questions, to be expected to make choices, to being regarded as a normal bug. They weren’t a normal bug. They were a tool. One without a purpose now. The Knight clutched the blankets closer to their chest as their throat grew tight. They might not want to help, but what they wanted didn’t matter. They could do this, so they should. They were only here to be useful. If they didn’t do that, then why even be here at all? 

Their sister sighed, her expression turning sad again even as she tried to hide it behind her mask.

“Okay,” she said softly. “But I’m going to help you, too. Then we can get some rest. We both need it.”

Their sister opened the door for them and the Knight ducked out into the cool, shadowed air. The only light was provided by the old lumafly streetlamps, bright enough to soften the darkness blanketing the town, but not banish it. Somewhere in the distance soft music played, somehow both upbeat and ominous, and the Knight’s gaze drifted in the direction of the sound to spot a faint haze of a reddish glow oozing out over the rooftops. The red light illuminated the bottoms of some of the lowest-hanging black clouds that smothered the sky. Dirtmouth might be a peaceful town, but it was not a comfortable one.

The Knight followed their sister’s instructions to hold one end of a blanket while she took the other and stretched the heavy fabric out between them. Together they gave each of the blankets a furious shake to free them of dust. More than once, their sister made another of those enormous noises she’d called a sneeze.

They were just folding the last blanket when the Elderbug’s voice wafted to them on the soft breeze. 

“Four visitors in one cycle. Something must be happening in the ruins below,” came his nervous rumble. Another voice spoke up as if to reply but the Elderbug cut them off. “No, no don’t tell me. My life has had enough excitement ever since that disturbing circus set up their tents outside of town. I do not need horror stories from the depths below to add to my sleepless nights.”

Just then, the Elderbug and his party rounded the corner into view. Two other bugs were following behind him: a small beetle with a broken headlamp and-

The knight went rigid as they recognized the tall pill bug rushing beside the Elderbug. They weren’t certain from where, but the Knight knew that bug and his blue bandana. He must have been someone of great importance if the Knight could recognize him, for they had never left the White Palace before their sealing, and only bugs of the utmost ranking were allowed within the King’s home. The pill bug’s trot slowed as he met the Knight’s startled stare, confusion clear behind his mask. But it was the Knight’s sister who spoke first. 

“Myla?” 

Their sister’s disbelieving gasp drew the attention of the small beetle walking behind the Elderbug and she went still at the sight of the red-clad princess. Then, before the Knight could even process what was happening, the beetle broke away from her group and rushed towards them.

“Hornet!” she exclaimed, rocking to a halt just short of barreling into the spiderling as the other two bugs made a more sedate path behind her. The Knight looked down at their sister as the exclamation registered. Hornet? Was that their little sister’s name? The Knight had been sealed before her naming ceremony, and had subsequently never had the presence of mind to try to learn it. Now that the Knight had the opportunity to think about it, they doubted even Herrah had the chance to learn her daughter’s name before going to Dream. Something cold ached in their chest at the realization.

“You’re alive?” Hornet whispered, not moving an inch as she stared at the bug before her. “But – but you were Infected! I saw you! How-?”

Myla shifted on her feet and began to fidget with the mining pick clutched in her hands.

“I d-don’t know,” she stammered, her voice soft. “One m-mome-minute I was surrounded by Light and the next it was Dark. Then I woke up.”

This drew the Knight’s interest. So they hadn’t been the only once to recover from the Infection. The heavy weight pressing down on their shoulders vanished as a warm wave washed through their shell and they gave the beetle a more critical once-over. Her carapace didn’t bare any scars at all similar to the Knight’s, but that did not mean much. The Knight had held the Infection for much longer, and had struggled against it for an age before succumbing. The Radiance had punished them severely for their resistance. A bug that fell more readily was far less likely to draw the Goddess’ ire and face the extremes of the infection as rapidly as the Knight had. 

Their arm and side began to burn at the thought.

Hornet’s eyes behind her mask crinkled up in a smile at the nervous bug before her. 

“I am so glad to see you’re alright,” she intoned, rocking on her feet as if inclined to embrace the other bug but stopping herself. “Do you know of any others who might have recovered?”

Myla shook her head. 

“No, but I h-haven’t looked yet.” She turned to the approaching pill bug. “Q-Q-Quirrel here helped me f-find this town.”

Quirrel. 

Now the Knight remembered where they’d seen the pill bug. He was the field researcher Monomon had insisted on including in her fail-safe. The Knight recalled seeing him when they guarded the few in-person meetings between the Pale King and the Dreamers, but they never knew what ended up of him. The Knight began to quietly fret, their claws digging into the soft blanket they clutched to their chest. They hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do if this bug recognized them. When the Old Stag had recognized them earlier, the Knight had just about fainted. But the stag beetle's memory seemed hazy and he'd accepted Hornet's explanation of 'family resemblance'. He hadn't seemed to recall the one time the Knight had left the White Palace with their Mother to see her gardens when they had been no bigger than Ghost. A secret they had guarded closer than nearly any other. But if this researcher recognized them, there would be no hiding what they were. It was already bad enough that their sister knew of their weakness. Having another who could understand the full extent of the Knight's utter failure against the Radiance left the Knight trembling. 

Quirrel bowed his head in a formal greeting at Hornet. 

“An honor to see you again, Sentinel of Hallownest” he greeted, completely ignoring the Knight. Myla looked between the two bugs.

“You k-know each other?” 

“In a sense,” Hornet answered, a smile still in her voice as she bowed back. “I tried to skewer him when he first entered Hollownest.”

“An experience I’ll not soon forget,” laughed the pill bug.

As the conversation went on without mention of the Infection or the Knight, the Knight's tense shoulders eased. Did the researcher not remember them? Or, perhaps they were mistaken about his identity. They were certain Monomon's assistant had been called Quirrel, but this pill bug showed no indication that he knew who the Hollow Knight was in the slightest. Their relief was short lived. The longer the three bugs talked, the more the Knight began to feel out of place standing behind Hornet with an arm-load of blankets, like a coat rack sitting in a bathroom. They weren’t a part of the conversation, and they weren’t inclined to be. But they started to feel distant again as their missing arm continued to burn. They could almost imagine they were back in the White Palace, guarding another of the Pale King’s important meetings. The way the voices talked around them but never to them; the way they stood at attention ready to leap to one’s bidding the instant they were ordered; the pale white light that danced in their vision; it was all so familiar.

The Knight’s side ached in time with the burning pain from their missing arm and the Knight focused on the sensation, the discomfort drawing them back into the present. They weren’t in the White Palace anymore. Things were different, now. _They_ were different, now.

“And who is this?” Quirrel asked pleasantly, his eyes focused on the Knight. Hornet stepped a little to the side and held out an introductory hand towards the Knight. 

“This is my sibling,” she introduced, and paused as if searching for something. Then, “I call them Hollow.”

The Knight turned their mask to stare at her with a suddenness that pulled the sore muscles in their neck. They had noticed her calling them ‘Hollow’ but had assumed it was just her shortening their title. Did she actually intend it as a name? 

“It’s a p-pa-pleasure to meet you, Hollow,” Myla said sweetly and Quirrel echoed her. The Knight awkwardly bowed their head in greeting as chills tingled in their chest. This didn’t feel right. The Knight wasn’t like other bugs. They didn’t deserve a name. 

“I don’t want to interrupt,” interrupted the Elderbug and everyone turned to face him. He cleared his throat self-consciously. “It is getting rather late, and I would like to retire to my own home soon.”

“Oh, my apologies,” Quirrel nodded with the Elderbug.

“Do you two already have a place to stay?” Hornet inquired, rather abruptly. When Quirrel and Myla answered in the negative she said, “Would you two like to stay here? The house is more than big enough. Hollow and I are only here for a couple of cycles, but I’d love the chance to speak with both of you about what has been going on.”

Something in the Knight’s chest went heavy and sank into their stomach at the thought of having to be around so many others, but Myla and Quirrel both accepted readily. 

“Well, with that settled, I am returning to my own nest,” stated the Elderbug with a hint of impatience. He lifted the pale flower he carried with him in a sort of wave and turned to hobble off the way he’d came. 

“Come on in,” Hornet invited, holding the door open with a single hand as her other two gathered up the blankets the Knight couldn’t carry. “I’m sure I can find some tea around here somewhere.”

The Knight was the last one to shuffle in, their limbs feeling leaden. 

Maybe they did want to get some sleep after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!  
> It's been a super busy week, but I'm really happy I managed to finish this chapter in time. I hope y'all are doing well.


	6. An Offer of Aid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Surely you don’t mean necromancy,” he blurted, not able to hide the disgust that burned behind the dread. After the way the Infection reanimated the dead and dying, the thought of attempting to do the same with his dear friend horrified him.
> 
> “Of course not,” Hornet retorted a bit too loudly. Then, as if remembering her sibling sleeping in the nearby loft and Myla on the sofa, she lowered her voice and continued in a harsh whisper. “At least, not the way you’re thinking. I don’t want to have their empty husk wandering around, a facsimile of my sibling playing at life. But they might not be completely gone. I’ve seen Ghost’s shell crack before, just never this badly. They have a- a sort of –“ she paused, searching for the words to describe whatever she was attempting to get across. She took a breath and started again. “They have this _ghost_ self that animates their mask. Ghost and Hollow aren’t like you and I; they are living void given focus. I don’t know how, exactly, it works or why. But before, when Ghost got hurt enough, that void shade would leak from the cracks in their mask. And, after a time the shade returned to the mask and healed the injuries.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw for allusions to suicidal thoughts

“That’s, uh, a lot to take in.”

Despite the warm fire flickering in the central hearth, Quirrel shivered with cold, his thoughts racing as he tried to understand everything that had just been said. He sat at an old wooden table across from the red-cloaked spider he now knew was named Hornet. Only the two of them were still awake. Myla had elected to sleep on one of the cushioned sofas in the sitting room after Hornet had insisted that she needed rest. Myla had seemed almost dead on her feet, but Quirrel suspected that Hornet’s insistence had been equally motivated by wanting to talk to Quirrel alone as much as it had been concern for the exhausted beetle. Hornet’s sibling had silently climbed into the loft that overlooked both the sitting room and the dinning space; their shoulders hunched in clear exhaustion. After everything Quirrel had just heard about the Hollow Knight’s experiences, he couldn’t blame them for absconding. 

Quirrel wasn’t certain why he had accepted Hornet’s invitation to stay with her and her sibling, aside from seeking answers to some questions he had about the fate of his friend. And answers he had gotten, though few of them were good. Quirrel ran a finger around the rim of the chipped teacup pilfered from one of the kitchen cabinets as he mulled over Hornet’s explanation of what had happened to the Infection. Murdered gods? A Void Sea? Vessels of Void and Soul? It all sounded impossible yet… eerily familiar. Even if he couldn’t understand why, he found himself believing everything Hornet had told him about the Infection being caused by an enraged Goddess, and Little Ghost’s and Hollow’s roles in keeping it contained. Quirrel had known that his little friend had an integral role in removing the Infection, and he had known it would be dangerous, but…

He lifted his gaze to the broken mask sitting in a nest of tattered grey fabric in the middle of the table. The sight of the familiar face broken in two sent a pulse of grief through him and Quirrel felt that empty space in his chest grow even colder. Fist the Madam, now his friend; truly Quirrel had no one left. The loneliness he had grappled with since returning the Madam’s mask ate away at the hole in his heart, and he fought not to let that sorrow overwhelm him. His chest felt as if it had been hollowed out and he struggled to bring himself to even breathe past the tightness of grief and he held a hand against his shell. How could emptiness feel so heavy? 

“I can’t believe they’re actually gone,” he whispered when he realized the silence had grown too long. Hornet looked up from staring into the flickering flames at his words and he gave a small shrug in answer to the questioning tilt of her mask. “They seemed so strong and capable. I had hoped that, if anyone could find a way to stop the Infection, it would be them. I hoped that they would be able fulfill their fate and live to see the fruits of their labor.”

Even as he voiced his hopes, he knew the truth. He had known they wouldn’t survive. He had felt it in his very soul the last time he’d spoken to them. When the two of them had sat there on the edge of the glimmering Blue Lake, the silence between them had born all the weight of a farewell. Neither of them would ever see the other again. He had known this without any doubt, and it had filled him with a loneliness not unlike the one he found himself drowning in now.

“They were very strong,” Hornet agreed, her voice holding a rueful tone that suggested some personal experience with her sibling’s prowess. “But they might not be gone for good. Hollow and I have a plan to try and bring them back.”

Her words sent a cold dread creeping up the back of Quirrel’s neck and he sat up straighter in his chair.

“Surely you don’t mean necromancy,” he blurted, not able to hide the disgust that burned behind the dread. After the way the Infection reanimated the dead and dying, the thought of attempting to do the same with his dear friend horrified him.

“Of course not,” Hornet retorted a bit too loudly. Then, as if remembering her sibling sleeping in the nearby loft and Myla on the sofa, she lowered her voice and continued in a harsh whisper. “At least, not the way you’re thinking. I don’t want to have their empty husk wandering around, a facsimile of my sibling playing at life. But they might not be completely gone. I’ve seen Ghost’s shell crack before, just never this badly. They have a- a sort of –“ she paused, searching for the words to describe whatever she was attempting to get across. She took a breath and started again. “They have this _ghost_ self that animates their mask. Ghost and Hollow aren’t like you and I; they are living void given focus. I don’t know how, exactly, it works or why. But before, when Ghost got hurt enough, that void shade would leak from the cracks in their mask. And, after a time the shade returned to the mask and healed the injuries.”

“So you think that, what, this is too big of a crack for them to heal? That is -” Quirrel waved his hand, searching for the right words as he sputtered through his confusion. He wanted to reject what she was telling him out of sheer disbelief, but he couldn’t. He, too, had seen the way Ghost’s mask would crack and seep that strange shadowy substance. Once, when helping them fight Uumuu, he could have sworn they had been killed by one of the intelligent jellyfish’s powerful attacks. But a dark shadow had appeared over their crumpled form and sank back into their cracked mask to leave them whole. He had thought he’d simply imagined it, or that the flashing sparks of the charged lumaflies filling the room had played tricks on his eyes.

“That is ridiculous,” he settled on at last. “Even if you’re right, how do you intend to fix the mask? There is incredibly intricate spellwork engraved on the inside just to give the mind behind it some sort of focus. If those spells and bindings are damaged there is nothing for the mind to tether to. And, even if you do find a way to replicate them, how can you guarantee that it is Ghost you get back and not just another vessel filled with void?”

“I don’t know,” Hornet snapped back and Quirrel went still as he realized how sharp his own tone had become. Why was he so angry about this? Why did he feel like he had made an argument similar to this before? Faint flickers of memories danced just under the surface of his thoughts, but they startled away from him as soon as he tried to reach for one. Had he argued with the Madam about her plan involving her mask? 

“I don’t know,” Hornet repeated more softly, her hands cupping her tea. Quirrel could see little ripples on the dark surface, the only indication of how the small spider was shaking. “We planned on going to the Mask Maker in Deepnest. They were the one to make all of Hollow’s masks while growing up. If anyone can fix this, it’s them.” 

Again, old memories shifted just out of Quirrel’s grasp at the name ‘Mask Maker’. He struggled after the glimmers of recollection, but they slipped out of his grip just like sand out of a clenched fist, leaving him with only the phantom sensation of knowledge. He could picture the spindly arms of the Mask Maker, constantly moving in and out of sight. He could recall their ever-changing masks and cryptic speech. He could even remember the dread and determination he had felt when he’d met them. But when he tried to remember _why_ he’d gone to them or _how_ he knew them, there was only fuzzy darkness. An empty blank in a sea of knowledge. As always, the feeling left him disoriented and mildly frustrated.

“Even if they can’t help Ghost, I know they can help Hollow,” she continued, drawing Quirrel out of his thoughts. He made a questioning sound in the back of his throat, uncertain of what she meant. Her bigger sibling seemed alright, if a little traumatized. But then, weren’t they all? 

“Their mask is cracked,” she drawled in a tone that said she thought him daft for seeming not to notice. He had, but had thought little about it at the time. “The Mask Maker could probably make them a new one. There is a very good chance that with a new mask Hollow would no longer have their scars from the Radiance. They might even get their arm back.” 

The appeal of such an offer was not lost on the pill bug, but a measure of apprehension tinged through him and one of his antennae twitched under his bandana. He personally felt that scars were not something to be ashamed of or erased, but he knew that the loss of a limb was vastly different from any injury he had ever gotten. It was always a challenge to adjust to such a change, even with adequate accommodations. Couple that with the sort of emotional adjustments the Knight would have to go through to just to unlearn the conditioning of their childhood, and you got one _very_ traumatized bug. If the Hollow Knight wished to ease their own transition and emotional healing by repairing their mask, who was Quirrel to judge them? 

If, however, this was a choice Hornet was making on her sibling’s behalf, things could get a lot more complicated.

“And if there is anything I can do to get my sibling back, I am going to do it,” said Hornet firmly, returning to the primary subject at hand. “With or without your approval. I only told you because I know you care about Ghost.”

Quirrel met her challenging glare with one of his own, practically bristling at the implication that his disagreement with her meant he somehow cared less about his friend. But the sheer resolve blazing in her eyes left the rest of Quirrel’s protests dying on his tongue, and his tense shoulders eased. While the jab stung, she had a point. If there was something that could be done to get Ghost back, shouldn’t they at least attempt it? What harm could there be in simply trying? At worst, it wouldn’t work. But at best?

A heavy breath heaved out of him and he dropped his gaze.

“I still think this is a foolish plan at best,” he sighed. Hornet sat her tea down with an aggressive clank of porcelain and some of the dark liquid sloshed onto the table. Quirrel quickly held up a hand to stay her anger. “But it is at least a plan. Likely, the best one we have.”

She slowly eased back into her chair at this.

“We?” she questioned suspiciously. 

“I want to help.”

The offer took them both by surprise. Before the words had left his mouth, Quirrel had been resolved to stay out of any plans the spider might have. Quirrel had only returned to Dirtmouth to see if his little friend had survived, using that one thread of hope to stay his hand after they left the Blue Lake. He had promised himself that if they, too, were gone, he could finally find rest in those serene waters. The moment he had seen Ghost’s broken mask, he had decided to return to the lake. 

And so, his offer to help took him by as much surprise as it did the spider. 

“You just said the idea is foolish,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “You don’t think it will work.”

“I don’t,” he shrugged, letting the bitterness drip from his words. He could find no motivation to lie to her, nor hide behind his typical mask of humor. He had seen all the wonders this kingdom had to offer; now, all that was left were horrors and phantom memories. He hadn’t the heart to pretend at the moment.

“But,” he continued, his tone softening at the small flicker of hope that fluttered in his chest. “If it does work? That would be quite a feat. And I would do anything to see them just one last time.”

Hornet stared at him for quite a while, her expression unreadable behind her mask. The only sound in the quiet home was that of the crackling fire and the faintest rustle of fabric on the sofa. Quirrel waited patiently, not particularly holding his breath over her response as he folded his hands atop the table.

“Alright,” she said at length, finally uncrossing her arms. “You can help.”

“I want to he-help, too.”

Both of them jumped at Myla’s soft voice, and they turned in sync to find the beetle sitting up on the sofa. She held an old quilt closed at her throat, the thick fabric wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak. 

“How long have you been listening?” Hornet asked, sounding more tired than upset. Myla’s gaze dropped and she shrugged. 

“Enough t-t-to hear your plan.”

Quirrel guessed that she had probably been awake the entire time, but he kept the thought to himself. He wondered at how she must feel, to learn that her miraculous recovery from the Infection had come at the cost of her friend’s life. He stood with a quiet groan, his joints aching. 

“Let me get you some tea,” he offered quietly. Hornet stood to dig another teacup out of one of the cupboards and rinsed it in the sink while Quirrel used a long metal rod with a hook at the end to retrieve the kettle from hanging above the fire. The tea itself was as old as everything else in the home – dry, brittle, musky, but there was no sign of mold, so Quirrel figured it would be fine to drink. Besides, he and Hornet had already had some and both of them were okay. He poured a couple spoonfuls of the loose leaves in a small diffuser over the new cup and added the water. The sweet scent of mint gradually began to waft up as the leaves steeped. 

“Th-thank you,” Myla whispered, accepting the cup gratefully. Her shoulders eased at the first scalding sip and she gave a small chuckle as Quirrel and Hornet returned to their seats. 

“It’s n-not funny, just st-str-strange,” she explained. “I can’t re-reme-recall the last time I had something to eat or drink.”

Quirrel gave a knowing nod. When he’d been in the Wastes outside of the Kingdom, he’d had a similar experience. He recalled that Hallownest had been put under some sort of pseudo-stasis when the Black Egg was sealed. He had since learned that Monomon’s mask possessed a similar enchantment that helped to preserve Quirrel. He had still aged, albeit much more slowly, but with the mask he had not felt that age, nor hunger, thirst, or a need to rest. He assumed the remaining bugs of Hallownest had experienced something similar. Now that the stasis had been broken, hunger and thirst would return to the few survivors left.

The three of them finished their tea in silence, Quirrel’s and Hornet’s having long since gone cold. The tang of mint still felt refreshing on his tongue, however, and Quirrel forced himself to concentrate on the small pleasure the taste brought him. He knew he needed to focus on something that wasn’t his own self-pity if he wanted to be of any help to Ghost. Savoring the small things again was as good a place to start as any. 

This time, it was Hornet who refilled their cups. After doing so, she returned to her chair and steepled her fingers under the chin of her mask. She sat with all the regality of a Queen holding a meeting with her advisors, her back straight and mask unreadable. Back to business, it seemed.

“So, what is it that you two can do to help?”

Her tone was neutrally professional, not quite cold but not particularly welcoming either. Quirrel leaned back in his chair, sipping his blisteringly hot tea to buy himself time to think. His skill with a nail surely couldn’t match her own, especially now when movement was becoming difficult. He doubted there would be much need for another fighter anyway, now that the Infection was gone. Hornet’s quest was difficult, possibly impossible, but it was not all that dangerous. Besides, Quirrel had left his nail at the Blue Lake. He pretended that he had merely forgotten it in his depressed state, but he knew the truth. He’d left it intentionally. In this Kingdom, you were either alert or you were dead. He had not intended to be alert. He sighed into his tea at his own foolishness.

“I can look into Monomon’s notes,” he offered at last. “I can still read acid scrolls, even if my memory is not what it once was. I know the Madam conducted a great deal of research on the Void, as well as the Vessel Project. She didn’t have all of it though – the Pale King did a great deal of his own experiments and research. That being said, I might be able to gain some insight on the ’ghost’ self you say they have. The Madam might have even found a way to return it once separated from the vessel’s shell.”

He wasn’t certain how comfortable he was with being in the archives again. Without Monomon there… He shook his head to clear it of those shadowy thoughts. _This is for Ghost,_ he reminded himself. It was the very least he could do for his little friend. If anyone deserved a second chance, it was them. Hornet nodded her acceptance at his suggestion.

“Maybe you could even find something to work as a contingency plan, in case the Mask Maker was lost to the Infection, or if they can’t help us.”

“I can try,” he agreed. 

The silence grew heavy as Hornet waited for Myla’s answer. The beetle fidgeted with her teacup.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, avoiding their eyes. “I’m not va-very strong, or fast, and I know I’m not all that bright. B-b-but even so. I want to help. Ga-Ghost was one of my only friends. They always ch-checked in to make sure I was doing al-alr-“ she paused with a frustrated sigh, her words having jumbled into an emotional rush. She took a breath, visibly calming. “They always made sure I was okay. Even when I wasn’t an-anymore. I want to do _something_ to help, if I c-can.”

To Quirrel’s amazement, Hornet reached out a hand to rest over the trembling beetle’s, stilling her nervous ramble. 

“You are plenty smart and strong, Myla,” she murmured, her voice impossibly gentle. Quirrel could have sworn Myla blushed and she dipped her head to hide it. Hornet drew back and continued, hiding her clear self-consciousness behind a casual shrug. “I am certain you will be able to help. Just having you here and knowing you care already means a lot. If you want, you can come to Deepnest with Hollow and me to meet the Mask Maker. Or, you can help Quirrel in the archives.”

A strong impulse to protest bubbled up in Quirrel but he quickly squashed the feeling. As much as he wanted to be alone, and as much as he loathed the idea of bringing someone else into the Archives, he knew that it was not a good idea for him to be by himself right now. Especially around all of that acid. Besides, a second pair of eyes looking for information couldn’t hurt. The archives were quite large, after all. 

Myla seemed uncertain about the options and Quirrel spoke up.

“You don’t have to decide tonight. Regardless of which option you pick, you will be welcome.” 

Only a slight exaggeration.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “I’ll think on it then.”

“On that note, we should all actually get some sleep, now,” Hornet suggested as the conversation lulled. Quirrel nodded in agreement, having to stifle the yawn that rose up at the thought of sleep. His whole body felt heavy and sore, despite not having done much of anything that day. He supposed it could just be his journey through Hallownest at last catching up with him. 

Hornet helped Quirrel remove the dustsheets from the second sofa opposite the one Myla had again curled up on. The spider sneezed at the plume of dust that rose from the pale cloth, the sound muffled as she tried to hold it in. She offered to shake the blanket out for him, but Quirrel shook his head. He didn’t need a blanket. 

“Where will you sleep, Hornet?” Myla asked drowsily. She and Quirrel both occupied the only furniture in the sitting room. Hornet pointed up at the loft, where her sibling was resting. 

Quirrel stretched out on the sofa, his legs dangling over one of the arms. The soft cushions smelled of dust and something floral. Lilac? It was pleasant, and he rolled onto his side, curling into a partial ball so only his hard outer shell was exposed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had actually slept, let alone laid on something so soft. He was already having difficulty keeping his heavy eyelids open as Hornet swung up onto the loft with her silk, settling herself against the wall with a plush blanket wrapped around her shoulders. 

For the first time in ages, Quirrel fell into a deep sleep, surrounded by the soft sounds of others resting around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's reading and leaving comments! It means so much to me that y'all are enjoying this story!  
> Work and classes have begun to pick up for me, so I'll be changing my update schedule to every other week instead of weekly. Thank you all again!


	7. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimm sighed heavily and pressed a hand against his chest, the motion hidden under his wings wrapped tightly around him. The thrum of his heart – the Nightmare Heart - could be felt faintly through his warm shell. The pulse was steady, but slow and languid. He did not have much longer. He could feel himself weakening, his body struggling more and more under the weight of the Heart’s influence, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the flames consumed him entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief interlude involving everyone's favorite bug clown!  
> Ghost fought the Radiance before finishing the ritual with Grimm, and now the Troupe Master is trying to find a way to complete the ritual before it's too late.
> 
> CW for discussions about death

The dark air of the night hung heavy with the weight of anticipation. 

Once, such a weight would have been born of silence, of the absence of life that long ago filled the sleepy town nestled on a Kingdom’s edge. In an age long passed, the laughter of children would have chased away the quiet of the dark nights. The soft conversations of meandering citizens would have whispered around the corners of lamp-lit streets and filled the now empty homes. If there had been commerce, the lively bickering and haggling over geo would have offered levity and drama. If there had been even one other living bug to walk the dusty, empty streets, the silence would have slunk away into the endless night. But there had been none, and the heavy silence grew until even the howling of the ceaseless wind became quiet. It waited, heavy and thick, for some stirring of change.

Now, however, that anticipation was born not from silence, but from song. An upbeat but somber melody that drifted on the gusting wind, creeping down the winding streets and dark alleys to sink into the little hidden alcoves of lives half-lived. 

The music did not break the silence. It merely added a counterpoint, emphasizing the sheer lack of any other noise or life within the tiny surface town of Dirtmouth.  
With that music came light. A harsh red light of fire blazing in ornate lanterns of dark metal. 

Just as the music did not banish the silence, the light did not chase away the darkness. Those flickering flames danced with the shadows and deepened the night just outside of their reach, turning what may have once been a familiar road into a treacherous maze of shifting light and dark. There was no levity nor hope in the light and warmth that bled from the tents of the Grimm Troupe. Elsewhere, the circus tents would have drawn a lively crowd, but the Troupe was not in this long-dead kingdom for entertainment, and there were few living souls left for them to tempt into the close warmth. 

In the largest of those tents, the Troupe Master waited, draped across a fainting couch cushioned in red velvet. A burning need to move and do _something_ nagged at him, but he forced himself to remain still. He could not allow his fidgeting to let on that he was growing anxious.

No. Not anxious. The God of Nightmares could not be _anxious_. Merely… concerned. It had been quite some time since the vessel who had summoned him had gone out to collect the second set of flames around the kingdom, and he was beginning to feel the consequences of prolonging the ritual past its limits. 

Patience finally wearing thin, Grimm shoved himself up out of his seat with a huff. The motion brought with it a deep ache of pain. Every muscle and joint protested at the strain of movement, and Grimm stood still for a moment to allow that pain to ebb back down to an ignorable level. 

The movement drew the attention of Brumm sitting on a chair nearby, and his mask tilted up to look at Grimm, his music never faltering. 

“Mrmm?” He hummed questioningly. “Something wrong, Master?”

Grimm sighed heavily and pressed a hand against his chest, the motion hidden under his wings wrapped tightly around him. The thrum of his heart – the Nightmare Heart - could be felt faintly through his warm shell. The pulse was steady, but slow and languid. He did not have much longer. He could feel himself weakening, his body struggling more and more under the weight of the Heart’s influence, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the flames consumed him entirely. Grimm hesitated for a moment, weighing whether he wanted to confide in the one Troupe member he might have considered an actual friend. He chose his words carefully, aware of the faint flickers of doubt he knew his closest companion held towards the Ritual.

“I am concerned our friend may be dallying,” he spoke, his voice scarcely more than a whispered rasp as he forced the words past his decaying throat. His voice had always been harsh, but now he sounded like he was trying to speak through a mouthful of gravel. It hurt just about as much. “There is not much time before I am pulled into the Nightmare realm once more, and they have yet to return with the next collection of flames.”

“Mrmmm.” This time Brumm’s music stopped entirely and he let the accordion rest on his lap as he gave his master his full attention. “Have they perished? While collecting the flames?”

Grimm shook his head. 

“I do not believe so. The Child still lives.”

This he knew for certain. The child was a part of him, just as every member of the Troupe was a part of the Heart. He would know the moment any of his Troupe were killed, especially the Child that would serve as the next vessel for the Nightmare Heart. But he knew, too, that the living Child did not necessarily mean a living Summoner. He heaved another heavy sigh, his chest feeling tight as he struggled to get a full breath. The sensation was normal this late in the ritual, but Brumm still watched him with the concern of a grubberfly with a sickly grub. Grimm might have been irritated at the implication of weakness, if he hadn’t been so _tired_.

“I am certain they will return Master,” Brumm reassured him. His tone was as low and disinterested as usual, projecting an air of trust in the Heart that Grimm knew Brumm no longer had. “They seemed strong. Mrmm. And willing enough.”

Grimm was too weary to argue and so he simply nodded in silent agreement. He turned to make his slow way towards the dark room he used as a nest at the back of the main tent.

“I am going to rest,” he spoke over his shoulder and Brumm took up his music once more. Grimm watched him surreptitiously from beside the curtain that hung over the start of the hallway to his room, wondering at what motivated his dearest companion. It was not trust in the Heart nor fear that kept him by Grimm’s side – though he knew that if Brumm truly wished to leave, the threads of the Heart wrapped chokingly tight around his very soul would never allow him to. Something else, however, kept him at the Troupe Master’s command despite his doubts. But even with all his insight on the emotional landscape of his troupe members, Grimm could not fathom what might be strong enough outside of the Heart itself to keep anyone here. The blind spot left him uneasy, and he let the curtain fall over the entryway to blot out the red firelight and muffle the music.

Back at the end of the long hallway draped in heavy black curtains, Grimm settled in for sleep. He hung from a comfortable perch in the ceiling and wrapped his wings tightly around himself, letting his exhaustion overwhelm his racing mind. The warm red glow of the Nightmare Heart engulfed him almost immediately as he sank into the familiar haze of half consciousness. 

He drifted past the small flickers of scarlet fire that burned in the minds of the bugs still alive in the town near his tents, ignoring their tantalizing nightmares for the time being. The longer the Ritual delayed, the more Grimm’s own physical form weakened and the more he needed to rest. Walking the nightmares of the few bugs remaining in Hallownest helped: the flames of fear and doubt fed the Heart enough to temporarily sustain him. If he so wished, he could enter those nightmares and bask in the warmth of their burning terror, but that was not what he was interested in this night. Instead, Grimm followed the thrum of the Nightmare Heart beating somewhere deep within the haze, sinking lower and lower into the red-tinged darkness with a specific goal in mind. 

The further down he went, the thicker the red mist became, banishing the soft darkness that shadowed the majority of the Nightmare’s domain. The slow beating of the Heart grew louder with every passing moment, until Grimm’s entire being hummed in time to the pulse. Here, at least, the pain of his failing body burned away, and he relished the warmth of the scarlet glow pressing in around him. With that brightness, however, came the appearance of thousands upon thousands of thin glowing threads, each pulsing with a scarlet light in tandem to the Heart’s beat. Each of the threads wove off into the gloom, tethered to the souls of those that served the Heart. Grimm often found himself thinking of those strands as veins, connecting the Heart to its followers and allowing it to feed on their fears and passions. But he knew those strands served a more direct purpose: they gave the Heart _control_. The entirety of the Realm of Nightmares and every member of the Grimm Troupe, down to the littlest Grimmkin, were just part of one giant marionette doll, with the Heart at the center of it all. The Heart was the real master, making its dolls dance to its bidding with the barest tug on those glowing strings. Even the Troupe Master Grimm himself was not free from those bonds. 

He glanced down at the mess of threads entangling his body, lifting a wrist to peer curiously at the strand writhing there. Troupe Master, yes. Puppet Master, no. While he could exert some level of influence over most of the members of the Troupe, he could not control them without the Heart’s approval. And _he_ could never defy the Heart.

As if he ever had any cause to want to.

Grimm’s god loved him unconditionally, and it granted him strength beyond anything he could have ever achieved on his own. He was the Heart’s vessel – to defy the Heart’s will would be to betray himself. Such a prospect sent the sharpest ache of dread through his chest and Grimm tore his gaze from the strands writhing around him. His feet settled on what felt like solid ground, though he could see nothing but shifting mist beneath him, and he strode deeper into the brighter glow ahead, following his own threads to the beating Heart itself. 

_Your visits are becoming quite frequent, child._

The rasping hum of a voice so similar to his own pulled Grimm to a halt and his attention turned towards the mist to his right as it started to shift and condense into a familiar shape. Grimm stared at the twisted reflection of himself as it materialized out of the haze, and he stifled the discomfort that coiled in his chest at the way the Nightmare King seemed to warp as it moved. If he did not look too closely, Grimm could almost believe that the Heart chose an apparition that looked much like himself, with wings and horns stained red. But the way its wings billowed unnaturally in the crimson fog and shifted into writhing shapes and grasping claws made Grimm’s stomach twist. Even the mimicry of a mask warped and danced as if being viewed through the wavering air above a fire. 

Grimm bowed his head to the manifestation of the Heart, a strange warmth of fear and affection glowing in his chest.

“I came to seek the Child.” Even his voice was smoother here. Deep and powerful without the feeble tremor of his decaying shell.

_You are growing uneasy,_ the flowing figure hummed as it coiled around him, the edges of its wings flicking like tongues of flame that lapped at the Troupe Master. Its touch burned, but not painfully so, and Grimm stood resolutely, trusting his god not to bring him harm.

“I am growing weak,” he admitted, giving voice to the fear that was slowly eating away at him. “I am afraid-“

_That the child will not return in time?_ the Nightmare King finished for him. The shifting form paused directly behind the Troupe Master and Grimm smothered the urge to flinch away from the warmth on the back of his neck, feeling the phantom pressure of a claw reaching for his throat. 

_No,_ it mused. The red smoke swept around Grimm to coalesce into the Nightmare King once more, his mask splitting into an impossibly wide grin filled with far too many fangs. The sharp teeth were mirrored in the dancing coils of its mimicry of wings. Grimm frowned under his own mask, confused, and the Nightmare King’s voice dropped into something akin to sympathetic. 

_You are afraid that the child_ will _return in time,_ it murmured, its form going still for just a beat as the smile fell into the stage-perfect concern of a crestfallen parent. Then it leaned forward until Grimm’s entire vision was enshrouded in its wings and glowing red eyes, close enough for him to almost taste the cloying scent of burning incense. 

Grimm went still, almost stammering out a protest, but he swallowed it back down. There would be little purpose in denying it. The Heart knew Grimm more deeply than he knew himself.

“Naturally, I fear death,” he agreed, letting out the breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. He swept out a hand as he continued, gesturing at their surroundings. The red threads entangling his arm followed the motion along with his wings. “Is that not part of the purpose? The Heart feeds on my fear as much as any other, and that fear at the Ritual’s crescendo will lend the Child the strength it needs to survive. But a slow death of decay without purpose? One that would leave the troupe without a master and my god without a vessel?" Cold fear spider-walked down Grimm's spine as he spoke the words and his voice hardened. "That, I fear more than the Ritual – it is _that_ fate I wish to prevent.”

The Nightmare King smiled sweetly at his words. It reached out with a claw tipped hand to gently cup Grimm's masked face, its red wings twisting around him once more in what might have been the Heart's attempt at a hug. 

_So the child you must find,_ it whispered.

Grimm nodded and the apparition melted away into the fog. Its voice echoed around him, as much in his own head as from the mists.

_Follow the Child’s thread. Discover how far it might take you._ The voice lowered in warning, becoming a faint murmur in Grimm’s ear. _But be wary of straying too far from the Fire's glow. Something ancient stirs at the fringes of the Nightmare, and it is growing stronger._

With that final warning still ringing in his thoughts, the dense fog parted to reveal the glowing form of the Nightmare Heart itself. The impossibly large shape stretched in nearly every direction, beating with a now-deafening rhythm, and Grimm traced the dark seams and sutures along the Heart’s surface with a critical eye. Glowing vermilion veins coiled around the Heart in an unfeasibly complex web, some strands larger or brighter than others, and Grimm took a steadying breath before moving towards them. He brushed his fingers along the nearest ones as he passed, drawing a faint thrum from the strings and savoring the taste of fear and delight that zinged through him at the touch, faint echoes of the current emotions from the threads’ owners.

Grimm felt his way along those webs of dreams and nightmares, searching for the one delicate thread of the Grimmchild. Fear or no, he was determined to complete the ritual. If he could just find the Child, and ensure they were alright, he could retrieve them. Even if the Summoner had perished, the child should still live, and the Troupe could cast another for the role of the Summoner. He may be running out of time, but the Ritual was in an early enough stage that such a recasting should be possible. 

He found the Grimmchild's thread very close to his own, the strand dim as it wound around his. But while Grimm’s stayed tightly woven near the Heart, the Child’s dove off into the smokey haze that obscured a majority of the Nightmare Realm. Grimm ran his hand over a few more strings, drawing strength from their murmurs of fear, and began to follow the Child’s bond. He had to duck and weave between the other strands as the Child’s took twisting turns and dove seemly at random. The further he went, the darker his surroundings became, until only the faint glow of the Grimmchild’s thread offered some contrast to the shadows growing thick around him. Grimm could feel that darkness pressing against his mind with the weight of an ocean and he forced himself to breathe against the suffocating pressure. A deep, bitter chill began to sink into his shell, frigged despite the fire burning in his veins, but still the Troupe Master pressed on. Even as all other sensation faded, he doggedly followed the Child’s solitary strand.

Then, abruptly, the Grimmchild’s thread vanished.

Grimm halted and stared at the impenetrable wall of darkness that appeared to swallow the Child’s thread, smothering its light so completely that Grimm briefly feared the strand had somehow been severed. He tapped the thread experimentally and watched it vibrate with an almost imperceptible hum. It was still whole, but he could sense nothing from the Grimmchild at the end. Frowning in frustration, he gave the thread an impatient yank. It went taut but drew no closer to him. A deep sense of foreboding settled in the pit of Grimm’s being and he recoiled as a tendril of that wispy darkness surrounding the thread reached out towards him, the cold intensifying to the point that it almost _burned_ as it drew near. Grimm backed away further as yet more of those lashing coils reached for him. Wherever the Summoner was, it was well beyond the Nightmare Heart’s sight and influence. 

Significantly important, though, was that the Summoner still lived.

Grimm drew comfort from that knowledge. If the Summoner had been dead, the Child would simply have been called to Grimm’s side by his pull on their thread. As it was, his tug might still prompt the Summoner to follow – the Heart was a skillful puppet master, after all. Most Summoners could not resist the slow, drawing nature of the Ritual’s dance. But this one was different. The little vessel that had summoned him and his troupe had a purpose all its own, bestowed upon it by a god as powerful as the Heart itself. Even with the allure of the Nightmare Heart’s dance, Grimm doubted he would be able to pull the Pale King’s vessel to him if doing so drew it away from its own goal – doomed as such a task might be.

The vessel still lived, however, else the Grimmchild would be at Grimm’s side by now. Surely, it would return shortly.

Even so, the impenetrable darkness that currently obscured it from Grimm’s sight stirred a deep unease in the very depths of his soul. There was something unsettlingly unnatural about the dense shadows coiling in thick, smokey tendrils at the fringes of the Heart’s domain. Unnatural yet…familiar. Part of him whispered warning at the presence of something so similar to the Void that had once attempted to consume the Radiance, but he quelled the unfounded fear. The Void had no reason to spread here, and had been sealed quite firmly in the depths of this decaying kingdom by a foolish Wyrm who refused to simply let dying gods die. 

Grimm forced himself to release the child’s thread and retreat back into the gentle haze of the Nightmare realm that served as Grimm’s sleep. He followed his own glowing threads up out of the smothering darkness and into the lighter shadows tinged with red. The subtle glow, usually far too dim for even Grimm to see, was nearly blinding after the darkness he had just traversed, and he blinked in relief. The haze reassured him that he was firmly back in the Heart’s domain and his tense shoulders eased as the fire’s warmth thawed his frozen limbs. At last back to familiar territory, Grimm allowed his mind to wander the planes of Nightmare, drifting slowly upwards toward the hazy space between wake and sleep where most nightmares manifested. 

As he returned to the surface of sleep, well away from the Heart itself, he discovered a handful more flames than usual within the small town. Grimm drew nearer, curiosity spurring him forward. The nightmares of the feeble Elderbug and the local shopkeepers were fine, as far as sustenance went, but they were also rather trite and dull. But these new flames flickered brightly, roaring with an intensity that promised a show. 

He idly brushed his fingers over the new flames, collecting just a small taste of their contents, watching but never influencing. Contrary to what some might believe, the Heart did not _create_ nightmares. It merely drew fears and traumas closer to the surface, forcing bugs to confront their problems. While Grimm could wield some modicum influence over the nightmares of other bugs, he could not create them outside of the traditional means employed by any average bug. 

He was not like his sister. 

The way She could conjure and manipulate dreams at will was a power all Her own, a relic from her once-great following. The nature of her power had not decayed, and even now in Her mostly forgotten state she could still weave the hopes of nearly any bug into potent dreams. Formidable as the Nightmare was, it was still only the Heart of a much more powerful whole – the Radiance had always been the stronger of the two of them after their division. 

The first nightmare was a staple one, saturated with choking water and cold loneliness. Grimm could taste the bitterness of grief rising from the nightmare's flame, sweetened only slightly by a touch of guilt. The dreamer must have lost someone dear to him recently and was struggling with the heartache that came with. Grimm withdrew from the Nightmare, somewhat bored with the rudimentary symbolism, and left the pill bug at peace in his melancholy. 

The second nightmare was filled with light and an enraged voice that felt eerily familiar, but it held little other interest to the Troupe Master. Regardless of the terror they inspired, a nightmare centered on the Radiance fell under Her domain. He had seen many such dreams from Radiance before, and he did not wish to draw Her attention by lingering in them. 

The third flame burned with a familiar hint of duty and bitter resentment, and Grimm passed by it entirely. He knew well the nightmares of the Daughter of Hallownest. The previous Troupe Master had once been close to the Gendered Child’s mother, and while he had been alive, he had watched over the spiderling from a distance. Grimm no longer held the same sentiments as his predecessor, having been born of a Ritual not long after the Beast had been sealed in Dream by the Pale King, but he still held true to the previous Troupe Master’s vow not to cause the princess undue stress. He did, however, note the Princess’ nearness with mild interest – he did not believe her to be one who frequented the surface or sought out the company of others. The three other flames that were so near to hers suggested she was no longer working alone to protect her home, no longer acting as the sole sentinel to all of the crumbling kingdom. He wondered if he should pay her a visit. He doubted she would enjoy such a thing, even if she remembered the last Troupe Master. She had been quite young when he’d last seen her. 

Grimm shook his head at his predecessor’s folly. To get so involved with a mortal seemed a terribly foolish thing to do, and he could only imagine what the last Troupe Master had been thinking at the time. Heaving a heavy sigh, Grimm passed the flame without so much as brushing it, ignoring the tantalizing tang of bitter fear and regret that radiated from the fire.

He drew up short of the fourth flame, staring into its flickering depths as his Heart raced in icy shock.

He knew this being.

He knew this Infection-touched vessel and their time trapped in his sister’s grip.

Grimm drew closer, sinking into the Nightmare to watch the once-named Pure Vessel as they frantically paced a shrinking room, their panic growing into desperation as the dark walls pressed down on them. Grimm was no stranger to this one’s nightmares after uncountable nights of anguish, and this particular one was a reoccurring torment for them. But for the first time, Grimm could not sense the Radiance lingering at the edges of the vessel’s mind. The sticky sweet scent of Infection, the golden-orange glow of Her light, the faint sounds of Her enraged screams, the burning taste of Her fury and terror, were all completely banished. The Pure Vessel was utterly alone, now; their mind filled only with their own thoughts and fears and doubts. Their panic at being trapped and their racing mind delighted the part of Grimm tied most closely to the Nightmare Heart. But another, smaller part of him ached in sympathy. How distressing and lonely such nightmares must be, to one so intent on being “hollow”. Nightmares were supposed to help offer insight, not needlessly torture again and again.

But something far more concerning nagged at the Troupe Master. 

Where could his sister have gone? And how had the Hollow Knight somehow survived? The last time Grimm had seen them in the Nightmare Realm, they had been nearly dead from the Radiance’s infection, their life prolonged only by the seals within their temple crafted by the Pale Wyrm. They had been as good as gone, with even their nightmares half muddled and faded to near nothing.

And yet, here they were, and the Radiance was nowhere to be found.

Grimm drew away. With a wave of his hand, he banished the four new flames, waving them away with the same ease one might use to shoo a pesky lumifly. It pained him to dismiss an easy meal, but the four newcomers deserved at least a single night of easy rest. He then turned to stare off at the smothering darkness that had swallowed the Grimmchild’s thread, a mounting feeling of dread chilling his veins.

Wherever the Grimmchild was, he got the sense that the small vessel and the Radiance were there, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience and your comments! I hope you enjoyed this short break from the main cast.


	8. A New Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m fine,” Hornet reassured the fretting beetle. She reached under her mask to rub at her stinging eyes as they began to water. How long had it been since she’d seen something so bright? Even what she’d glimpsed of the Radiance could hardly compare. There was only one thing Hornet knew of that shone in such a way, and it had been almost a lifetime since she’d last witnessed it. 
> 
> “It is the sun,” she explained. 
> 
> “T-the,” Myla stared at her blankly, her hands on Hornet’s shoulders going still. “The what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sun is back after the stasis has ended and it shares some uncomfortable similarities to a certain MIA god

“Hornet!”

The thin thread of sleep snapped at the frantic shout, sending Hornet’s thoughts plummeting back into consciousness. She jerked awake at the painful pound of panic that iced through her. The metal of her needle bit coldly in her hand as she leapt to her feet, ready to strike before her vision had even cleared. 

“What, what is it?” she demanded, trying to blink the sleep from her eyes and gathering the soul to lash out with her thread if something attacked. It took her a moment to spy Myla peering frightfully up at her from the ground floor. Her hands wrung the blanket still around her shoulders and she rocked nervously from foot to foot. Hornet’s sharp gaze swept the room below. Quirrel still slept on the sofa. The fire had long since burned down to embers, and there was no sign of any danger in the small home. But, the terror in Myla’s shout had sent ice through Hornet’s soul and she stared expectantly at the beetle, confused but still poised to pounce if it turned out some danger had escaped her notice.

“Th-the sky,” Myla stammered. Her voice was barely a squeak in near panic. “It’s b-ba-bright. It’s bright ju-just like the I-In-Infection.”

Hornet blinked in confusion, her tense shoulders easing just a little as she tried to process Myla’s terrified jumble. 

“What?” she asked stupidly. 

“The sky,” Myla repeated and pointed back towards the front door. Hornet noticed that the heavy wood door hung slightly ajar to let in a thin sliver of bright yellow light. Hornet’s heart stuttered at the sight. That golden glow…had the Radiance somehow returned? A sour taste burned at the back of her throat as she carefully hopped from the loft and crept up to the door with growing apprehension. Grip tight on her needle, she warily peered through the gap into the street beyond. 

Bright, golden light stung her eyes, and Hornet recoiled with a hiss as sharp pins stabbed into her skull. 

“A-a-are you alright?” Myla rushed over to the momentarily blinded spider, her hands catching Hornet’s shoulders to steady her. 

“I’m fine,” Hornet reassured the fretting beetle. She reached under her mask to rub at her stinging eyes as they began to water. How long had it been since she’d seen something so bright? Even what she’d glimpsed of the Radiance could hardly compare. There was only one thing Hornet knew of that shone in such a way, and it had been almost a lifetime since she’d last witnessed it. 

“It is the sun,” she explained. 

“T-the,” Myla stared at her blankly, her hands on Hornet’s shoulders going still. “The what?”

“The sun,” Hornet repeated, her own shock beginning to tingle through her. It had been an age since she’d seen anything but thick black clouds shadowing the surface’s sky.

“I – I don’t…” Myla trailed off. “Who is ‘the son’?”

A quiet groan drew their attention to Quirrel as he partially uncurled on the nearby sofa. His bandana was slightly askew, leaving one of his antennae uncovered, and he still looked exhausted as he squinted at the two of them over the arm of the sofa. 

“It’s not a ‘who’, it’s a ‘what’,” he mumbled around a yawn. He laboriously pushed himself into a sitting position as he went on, his hands shaping the air in front of him as if to illustrate his words. “It’s a big ball of light in the sky. You know, the thing that makes the day bright?”

“Quirrel,” Hornet said with exaggerated patience. “Hallownest hasn’t had a ‘day’ since the stasis started.”

The pill bug paused in his stretching to blink at her.

“Oh,” he said lamely. “That… would explain a few things actually.”

“Like how it always seemed to be night here?” 

“I didn’t come to the surface often,” he mumbled groggily as he self-consciously fixed his bandana. 

Myla backed up from Hornet a bit and began to again twist the blanket in her claws. There was a soft, clattering noise coming from the trembling beetle that reminded Hornet of the way her father had buzzed His wings when He was anxious. Hornet wondered if Myla also had wings, hidden somewhere under her shell. 

“It’s alright,” Hornet assured her, reaching out to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder. “The sun is harmless. I promise, you’re safe.”

Myla’s tense grip on the blanket loosened somewhat at Hornet’s gentle touch but her eyes remained wide with fright as she stared towards the door. Hornet reached back with one of her secondary hands to ease the door shut, severing the thread of golden light that had been spooling into the room. The darkness of the nest seemed even heavier after the warm glow, but Myla relaxed a smidgen more. Hornet couldn’t blame Myla for her panic – indeed, the brilliant brightness was not all that different from the burst of golden light she’d seen when Ghost and Hollow had defeated the Radiance. 

A sudden thought occurred to her and Hornet went cold. If Myla was this shaken, then how might Hollow take this sudden change? She at least needed to warn them. She gave Myla a quick apology before swinging up onto the loft with a thread. 

Hollow was still curled up in the covered nest, the plush roof creating an alcove of darkness in the otherwise brightening loft. Sunlight was beginning to pool through the large window that served as the room’s third wall, creating a patch of warmer light just in front of the opening of the sleeping-nest. Hollow had their back curled towards her, but she thought she could see them trembling ever so slightly. 

“Hollow?” She called gently. They shifted at her voice and she found their void-black eyes peering at her from under one of the blankets, the shape of their horns scarcely visible under the many layers of fabric. Hornet hesitated. Where should she even begin with this?

“Have you ever heard of the sun?” she asked at length. They didn’t move, an answer she was beginning to associate with ‘no’. She sighed and glanced down towards Myla, who was still standing near the door shifting from foot to foot until Quirrel quietly invited her to sit on the sofa across from him. Hornet didn’t want to have to explain this twice. 

“How about you come join us downstairs?” she suggested. Before they could begin to untangle themself from the blankets, she stood in their way.

“It is brighter out here,” she warned in her most soothing tone and they went still. “It might remind you of-” she paused, reluctant to say the Radiance’s name flat out. “Of before. But I promise you, this light is harmless. It cannot hurt you. You are safe.”

Hollow stared at her, everything about them having gone statue-still at the mention of light. But after a moment, they slowly began the process of extracting themself from the blankets and crawling from the nest. Hornet stood out of their way as they slid into the brighter space. They very pointedly did _not_ look toward the brightly lit window and slid off the loft to the ground floor. They were so tall that there was hardly a drop. All they had to do was sit on the ledge and stretch their feet the scant inches to the floor.  
At some point during Hornet’s brief warning to Hollow, Quirrel had stirred the fire back to life. He stood at the sink now, the sound of running water loud in the relative quiet as he filled the kettle. Myla wasn’t fidgeting with the blanket anymore, but she was humming quietly to herself, the tune up beat and cheerful in stark contrast with the expression of deep concern still etched on her unmasked face. 

“How about you take a seat?” Hornet suggested to her sibling softly. Hearing this, Myla scooched over on the sofa and patted the cushion next to her with an encouraging but sickly smile. Hollow glanced between the two of them, their arm crossed over their stomach in clear nervousness, but they shuffled over to lower themself down onto the plush seat, their tattered cloak bunching under them. Quirrel hung the kettle over the fire and returned to his spot on the other sofa. Hornet considered sitting next to him, but decided against it, instead electing to stand somewhere to the side between the two sofas where she could easily see both everyone and the door. Quirrel seemed relatively unconcerned about the sun’s sudden reappearance, but his fingers steepled under his chin, his attention on the floor as if lost in thought. He was the first to break the silence. 

“So, neither of you have ever heard of the Sun?”

Myla shook her head. 

“Only in the sa-sense of a child,” she said. “What is it?”

“It’s a ball of light in the sky,” Hornet explained. “It used to rise and set at fairly regular intervals.” 

“Every eleven hours, give or take,” Quirrel added. “Depending on the season. It travels in an arch from east to west across the sky. The sun is what provides light and warmth to the surface – it is what allows plants to grow.” 

“Then wh-why did it dis-disa-“ Myla screwed up her face. “Why did it vanish?”

“It more than likely has something to do with the forces the Pale King was meddling with to put the Kingdom in stasis,” Quirrel shrugged, rubbing his chin with a hand in thought. “If I were to make a guess, He didn’t so much as make the sun disappear as He did block it out. I remember seeing it outside of the Kingdom often enough, after all. Though I cannot imagine why He would want to do such a thing.”

“Unintended consequences,” Hornet guessed. She hadn’t the faintest idea why her father had done many of the things He’d deemed necessary. She had only seen the sun once before the Kingdom had been sealed. It had been when the Pale King had decided she should go on a tour around the Kingdom, when she had been young enough to trust Him and He had been confident enough in His plans that He felt she should see the world her mother went to Dream in order to preserve. _He_ hadn’t come with her, of course, as he had been far too busy adding the final touches to the Hollow Knight’s bindings. And neither had her mother, Herrah, still undergoing whatever final rituals were necessary for her own unnatural sleep. But Hornet hadn’t traveled alone. Together with the Five Great Knights and the White Lady, Hornet had seen almost all of Hallownest, including the surface with its shifting weather and dancing stars and brilliant sun. Hornet could recall the way the Queen had seemed to grow in the sunlight, her face tilted to the sky and her branches outstretched, as if relishing the touch of that warm glow before descending back into the endless dark of the caverns below. Hornet and the White Lady had been somewhat close, once. To this day, that trip with the White Lady and the Five was one of her fondest and bitterest memories, made even worse by the fact that none of the three queens nor the five knights who had raised her lived to see the Infection’s end. 

For the briefest of instants Hornet wondered what had been happening to her sibling while she’d been on holiday with their mother, but she quickly turned away from that tram of thought. 

“How,” Myla started, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat and tried again. “How do you know it’s not the I-Infection again? If th-this ‘sun’ has been gone for so long, why w-would it be back now?”

“The Infection is gone.” Hornet stated firmly. “The being that caused it is destroyed, and thus the Infection can never return.”

Hornet stood tall as she spoke, infusing as much confidence as she possibly could in her words. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t actually _know_ if the Radiance had been destroyed – she had merely assumed as much when the Infection faded. But Hollow did nothing to refute her claims, and she trusted them to know whether the Radiance was dead or not. 

“The sun is back now because the stasis ended when the seals containing the Infection were destroyed,” Quirrel reiterated for emphasis. “The sun, and the cycles between night and day, are perfectly natural and safe. The light might sting your eyes at first, but that is only because you are accustomed to the darkness. So long as you don’t stare directly at it for too long, the sun is completely harmless.”

“What ha-happens if you stare at it?”

“You can go blind,” Quirrel stated and Myla went ridged with fright. Quirrel’s expression immediately softened and he rushed mitigate the damage of his claim. “But I have never seen or heard of it actually happening. It’s more of a theoretical result of prolonged exposure of light directly to your retinas – it is not an actual guarantee, and the atmosphere and clouds diffuse the light enough that it can’t hurt you unless you stare at the sun itself.”

The fact that Quirrel could not remember if it had ever happened before was not a particularly fool-proof test, given his fragmented memory, but Hornet kept the thought to herself. Such a comment would only make Myla and Hollow even more nervous, and while Quirrel’s memory was hazy most of the time, he was still plenty smart. As it was, Myla had gone back to twisting her blanket, clearly doubting Quirrel and Hornet’s assurances of the sun’s harmlessness. Hollow, on the other hand, was simply staring at a fixed point somewhere between Hornet and Quirrel, not having moved so much as a breath since sitting down. Hornet realized there would be no reading their feelings unless something happened. She cast about for some way to help the two of them learn that the light was no longer a sign of Infection. 

“I need to run a few errands today, before we leave for Deepnest,” Hornet said, mostly thinking out loud. “How about you two come with me? You can see how the sunlight is harmless, and if you get overwhelmed you can always come back to the house.”

“That’s a great idea,” Quirrel agreed brightly, sitting up straight as he gestured with his hands. “Once you see for yourself that it won’t hurt you, the light shouldn’t scare you as much anymore. Sometimes, in order to break old fears, you have to build new, positive associations with their triggers.”

Myla recoiled back into the sofa’s cushions, pulling the blanket tighter around her throat. That soft clattering noise came again as her hidden wings trembled. 

“You p-promise the sun is safe?” 

“On my word as the crown princess of Deepnest and the Sentinel of Hallownest, no harm will come to you,” Hornet vowed. Overly formal, perhaps, but she meant it. She met and held Myla and Hollow’s gazes in turn until they each gave a slow, hesitant nod. She gave Quirrel a questioning glance. Even if he was familiar with the sun, the invitation to come shopping with Hornet was still open. He shook his head in refusal. 

“I think I’ll stay here.” He nodded towards Ghost’s broken mask still nestled on their tattered cloak in the center of the table. “I want to take a closer look at their mask. I have some memories of the seals Monomon used on hers and I would like to see if they match any of the ones on our little friend’s mask.”

The thought of tinkering around with Ghost’s mask made Hornet’s chest tight with unease. But she supposed there was little he could do to make the damage worse, so she nodded in assent. With that decided, Hornet beckoned for Myla and Hollow to follow her to the door. Myla rushed to stay close, as if seeking safety from the spider’s presence, but Hollow followed at a more sedate pace, their hand pressed against their scarred side. Hornet paused with her hand on the door handle, preparing herself for the brightness. With a breath, she shoved open the heavy wood door and stepped out into the first day the Kingdom had seen in an age.

Hornet squinted in the harsh light, everything in her vision lined in a white glow so bright it stung. Growing up underground in Deepnest would have left her rather unaccustomed to the daylight even without the stasis, and even with a Wyrm that literally glowed as a sire, Hornet still retained the photosensitivity of her mother’s brood. It felt like it took an eternity for her eyes to adjust enough to see anything with any measure of clarity, and even then, her surroundings were hazy and bright and almost painful to look at. The sun might be harmless, but that didn’t mean she particularly liked it.

Hornet looked back over her shoulder to find Myla and Hollow both standing on the threshold less than two steps behind her. Neither of them moved to join Hornet in the warm glow. 

“I promise it is safe,” she soothed, turning to stand just before them so the edge of her cloak brushed the shadow of the doorway while the rest of her remained in the daylight. She offered a hand to each of them. Myla flinched back, her gaze darting from the open palm to Hornet’s mask, as if trying to see if she were lying. Hollow merely stared at her, not even moving to breathe. Hornet waited, her eyes slowly adjusting to the brightness. She could already feel the beginnings of a headache stirring just behind her eyes, but she did her best to ignore it. She worried if she let her photosensitivity show, it would only enforce Myla and Hollow’s fears. 

“You can trust me,” she vowed, holding Myla’s gaze. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.” 

A deep breath lifted Myla’s shoulders and she let it out slowly, tentatively resting a hand in Hornet’s. The shell of her palm was cold, but not icy as Hollow’s had been, and Hornet gave it a reassuring squeeze. Myla flinched when Hornet drew her hand into the light, but the tension eased out of her after a moment.

“It’s a l-little warm,” she half-giggled, her nerves still clear in the bubbly sound. “B-b-but in a nice way. Like a hot spring.”

Hornet’s pulse jumped a little at the brave smile Myla gave her, and Hornet found herself grinning back even though the beetle couldn’t see it behind her mask. A sudden rush of pride washed through her at Myla’s courage and her grip on the beetle’s hand tightened just a little bit, hoping to wordlessly convey the sentiment through the touch.

When Hornet’s gaze lifted to Hollow, however, she knew they would not be joining her. 

Hollow’s claws were clutching the tattered cloak over their missing arm, their chest heaving for breath. Their gaze seemed to be fixed in her direction, but Hornet got the distinct impression that they weren’t seeing her. She called their name cautiously, subconsciously drawing Myla to stand behind her. Hollow didn’t so much as twitch, their black eyes staring through her as they panted for breath. She reached out to rest a gentle hand on their shoulder, thinking to draw them out of whatever nightmare they were trapped in.

That was the wrong thing to do. 

Before Hornet’s hand had even brushed theirs, Hollow flinched back. She heard the sound of their hand striking her wrist before she felt it and she blinked in shock, scarcely having even seen them move. She went still, the faint ache in her wrist throbbing scoldingly, and she stared at Hollow now standing a few feet back, half crouched as if preparing for her to attack them.

“Hollow, it’s alright,” she eased as soon as she gathered enough of her wits to keep her voice level. Hollow seemed to sink deeper into the shadows beyond the door, though they didn’t move an inch. Their breath was shallow and ragged now, their shoulders trembling violently, and they stared directly into her eyes, their gaze piercing where it had before been distant. They seemed to be searching her eyes, as if… 

As if they thought she was Infected.

The sudden realization prickled across her shell and guilt twisted her belly into a tight knot. Pale beings, she was a fool for trying to touch them, for rushing them when they clearly weren’t ready.

“Hollow, you’re okay. You’re safe, I’m not going to hurt you,” she swore. She ached to embrace them, to wrap her arms around the Hollow Knight and assure them everything was safe, but she could clearly see that such a thing would only make this worse. “It is still just me,” she promised. “The Infection is gone. Myla and I are fine.”

A flicker of movement caught Hornet’s attention as Quirrel’s form appeared at the edge of her vision, but she didn’t move her eyes from Hollow. Their stance had eased somewhat at her words. Their hand crept up to clutch at their side, their claws almost digging into the scars there as they took deeper breaths. Their gaze began to dart around at their surroundings, the tilt of their mask conveying more confusion than terror, and their crouched stance straightened up somewhat. Hornet spared a quick glance over her shoulder at Myla, ensuring that the beetle wasn’t having a similar panic, but her expression was mostly sympathetic as she watched Hollow. 

“We’re b-both okay,” she added to Hornet’s assurances, stepping out from behind Hornet. Hollow looked between them, their shoulders relaxing further at her words. Hornet gave an inward sigh, relieved at their growing calm. But her stomach still writhed with guilt for having forced her sibling into the situation in the first place. She should have known better than to touch them. How would she have reacted if someone had done the same to her? After living in the wild for so long, with nothing but the Infected husks for company, someone reaching out to touch her would have sent her into a panic much the same way. And unlike Hornet, Hollow had never received physical reassurances while growing up as the Pure Vessel. How else should they have reacted? The thought made her want to hug them all the more, and she wrapped her secondary arms around herself under her cloak, as if she could help hold them together by holding herself back. 

“You are not required to come with us if you do not wish to,” Hornet said quietly. Hollow’s mask dipped as they continued to tremble, their claws sinking deeper into their side. A moment passed before Myla spoke up.

“Do you wh-want to stay?”

There wasn’t even a pause. Hollow vigorously nodded their mask yes and they sank further back into the shadows of the house.

“Alright,” Hornet said, shrugging her shoulders as if it didn’t matter. “Maybe keep Quirrel company if you feel well enough for it?”

Quirrel jerked where he stood just beside the door at the sound of his name and Hornet gave him a meaningful look. She didn’t want her sibling to deal with this on their own, and she got the sense that Hollow had misgivings around her. Maybe they would be more at ease with someone like Quirrel, someone who they hadn’t seen often before the Infection. His antenna twitched in understanding and Quirrel finally stepped forward, drawing Hollow’s attention. 

“Would you like to come sit at the table with me?” he suggested, holding out an arm in invitation. “I can make us some tea while Hornet and Myla take care of their errands. I would be glad of your company.”

Hollow still clutched at their side, but their claws no longer dug into their shell and their breathing was smoother. They furtively glanced between Hornet and Quirrel, as if seeking permission, and Hornet gave them a reassuring nod.

“We have this handled,” she said with a small hand wave. “You can stay.”

She could almost hear their sigh of relief and their mask bowed gratefully. Hornet gave a wave goodbye as they turned to walk with Quirrel toward the kitchen, the pill bug giving her a reassuring nod as he passed. Hornet eased the door shut with a heavy heart. 

“Well,” she said with a forced brightness, twirling to Myla with a cheeriness she did not feel. “There is no use in dallying. Are you doing alright?”

Myla nodded, and another brave smile crossed her face. The warmth behind the smile eased a little of the guilt clawing at her, and Hornet held out her hand, both to offer the beetle reassurance and to give herself something solid to hold on to. Myla laced her claws in hers without any hesitation and the two made their slow way down the street. Without the shadows of the night, the crocked cobblestones and run-down nests stood in stark relief against the pale sky. The two walked in the quiet for a time, with Myla humming softly to herself. It was a familiar tune – one Hornet had listened to in the pale pink glow of Myla’s cave many times. As always, Hornet thought the sound lovely. 

“It’s too bad Hollow couldn’t come with us,” Myla murmured after a while. “It’s not so b-bad after the in-inish-initi... The first scare.”

Hornet hummed a quiet agreement, suddenly very tired. She felt terrible for scaring her sibling so badly, but a part of her glowed warm with pride in them. The Hollow Knight had finally admitted a _want_ , and had insisted upon it being respected. They were still scared and hurting, but that was a big first step in the right direction. She had to believe that. 

"Thank you for coming with me," Hornet thought to say, the quiet again growing uncomfortable. "I know it must be scary for you, too."

"A la-little," Myla admitted before glancing away, her antenna twitching. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but clearly thought better of it and simply returned to humming. A small smile ghosted across Hornet's face and she began to hum along with Myla, the two of them making their careful way down the uneven street as their shadows ran recklessly ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thank you so much to everyone reading and leaving comments! I really love seeing y'all's thoughts


	9. Honey, Maps, and TikTiks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What was that?” tumbled out of his mouth instead. The sound came again; the faintest skittering noise of claws on dirt that came from just below their feet. The Knight cocked their mask to the side, clearly able to hear it too. Their gaze drifted over Quirrel’s shoulder and he turned to find what they were staring at, quickly spotting the dull glint of metal on the wood floor. Quirrel hummed in mild surprise. It was a circle latch in one of the panels of the floor. He was willing to bet that it opened some kind of trap door into the nest’s cellar.
> 
> The skittering came again, but this time it was followed by the distinct sound of glass shattering. Something was clearly rooting about in the cellar. Probably just some wild bug like a crawlid that had somehow gotten itself trapped. They couldn’t just leave it down there to make a mess or hurt itself, though, and Quirrel itched with curiosity about what could be in the cellar aside from the intruder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hollow and Quirrel play "catch the tiktik" while Myla and Hornet visit everyone's favorite mosquito!

“Please feel free to take a seat,” Quirrel invited, drawing out a chair for the Hollow Knight. He didn’t want to admit it, but the way the Knight loomed over him, staring blankly with those big black eyes, made Quirrel a touch uncomfortable. Not because he was afraid, but because it felt so awkward. The way they stood reminded him a soldier at attention; motionless and expectant as if awaiting orders, or directions. Quirrel strove for some kind of casual familiarity by offering them a seat the same way he would any other bug. The Knight simply stared at the chair, seeming torn as their fingers idly danced down their side. 

For the first time, Quirrel noticed the lighter black scars in the Hollow Knight’s carapace and he realized that the Knight was tracing them with a claw. Until now, distance and the Knight’s tattered cloak had hidden the scars from Quirrel’s view. He stepped around the Knight and forced his attention from the deep divots and healed cracks, not wanting to make the Knight uncomfortable by staring.

Instead, he began to search the cupboards, his stomach rumbling with hunger for the first time in as long as he could remember.

“I do hope that your sister had ‘food’ on her list of errands today,” Quirrel thought out loud as he methodically searched each of the cupboards one by one. Most of them held cookware ranging from pots and pans to plates and bowls. A few drawers held spoons, or knives, or measuring cups and one was stuffed with squares of thick, dry moss likely used for cleaning. Eventually, one of the cupboards opened to reveal something edible. It was the one by the sink. The bottom shelf held teacups and mugs, but the shelves above it held jars of dried herbs and tea. Most of the jars contained little more than dust now, but two in particular caught Quirrel’s eye. One held two brown sticks each the length of Quirrel’s finger, and the other was filled with a dark amber so deep it was almost black. The two jars were on the very top shelf, well out of Quirrel’s easy reach, and he stretched up on his toes to get them. He managed to snag the one with the two sticks, but the small amber-filled jar was pushed away by his grasping fingertips.

“Squib spit,” he swore under his breath. Before he could try something stupid, like climb onto the counter, the Hollow Knight appeared at his side and easily grabbed the jar.

“Oh!” squeaked Quirrel, not having even heard the Knight come up beside him. For being so large, they moved with remarkable silence. The Knight held the jar out to him expectantly.

“Thank you,” he stammered as he accepted it. The jar was tiny, able to fit easily in the palm of Quirrel’s hand. But if it contained what he hoped it did, even this puny amount was worth a small fortune. He eagerly cracked open the jar. The dark liquid inside had crystalized long ago, and Quirrel had to use a claw to dig out a small clump of the ambler and place it on his tongue. The sweetness was immediate – dark and rich and warm - and Quirrel hummed in delight as it zinged through him. He held the open jar out to the Knight. 

“Do you like honey, dear Knight?”

The Knight recoiled a little, glancing between the small jar and Quirrel’s mask in apparent confusion. A though occurred to Quirrel and his hand lowered just a little. 

“Are you able to eat?”

The Hollow Knight was a partially constructed being, after all. It was entirely within the realm of possibility that they could not, in fact, eat. They certainly didn’t appear to posses a mouth or trunk of any sort, and he knew their mask was actually their face, unlike Quirrel’s. Much to Quirrel’s relief, however, the Knight slowly nodded their head yes. 

“Oh, good,” he sighed. “I just worried that… well, you don’t appear to have a mouth, I mean…” he forced himself to stop, realizing that he probably sounded insensitive. He held up the crystalized honey instead. “You should try some. It’s very good, and good for you. The bees of the Hive make it out of pollen from Isma’s grove, and it’s full of nutrients and sugars. The Hive used to trade it with Hallownest in return for crafted items like armor.”

Quirrel didn’t question how he knew this, long since accustomed to his wandering memory. He often found that the less he tried to pin his memories down, the more he could actually recall. The Knight’s hand opened and closed at their side in indecision and Quirrel turned to dig out a spoon from the drawer of silverware he’d discovered the night before. After giving it a quick rinse in the sink to remove the dust, he scooped out a good sized sticky lump.

“Here,” he offered the spoon, hoping the Knight could hear the friendly smile in his voice or see it in his eyes. The Knight accepted the spoon almost reverently, taking it with gentle claws. Quirrel returned the lid to the honey and placed it back in the cupboard, though this time on a shelf well within his reach. When he turned, he found the Knight’s mask dripping with silent tears of darkness, the spoon empty. A brief flash of panic iced through him – Pale Beings, what would Hornet do if she learned he’d made her sibling cry?

“Are you alright?” he questioned, burying his sudden panic under a gentle tone. The Knight simply nodded and wiped their mask with the back of their arm. They weren’t shaking or pulling away as the had earlier during their panic attack. They didn’t seem scared or sad or hurt. 

The Knight took a shaky breath and held the spoon out to Quirrel. 

“When was the last time you had something to eat?” Quirrel asked as he took the utensil and washed it in the sink. The Knight shrugged and held their hand flat, palm side down just above their knee in the same way Quirrel would do to indicate someone’s height. Something in his chest tightened as he understood. The Knight hadn’t eaten since they were small, probably since well before the stasis started.

Quirrel had never thought of the Pale King as a particularly kind being, but he had never believed Him to be cruel. Cold, yes, maybe even heartless by some standards, but Quirrel couldn’t remember the Pale King having ever done anything unless He believed it was necessary. What could possibly have been necessary about starving a child?

Unless He didn’t believe the Knight a child at all, and only fed them as was necessary for them to grow. If they were still alive after so long without eating even prior to the stasis, then food as sustenance was not a necessity for the Knight. And if He truly believed them to be a hollow vessel with no feelings or desires, then He would have had no reason to provide them with the mortal comfort of food.

Quirrel was suddenly very grateful that his mask hid the scowl that crossed his face as he dropped the clean spoon into the drawer and slammed it shut with a touch more force than was necessary. Pale beings, how could he have played a part in such a plan? Had he, too, believed the Knight to be empty? Had he really thought of them as nothing more than a mindless tool? He wanted to believe not, but could he really know for certain? 

And if he had? If he had known the Knight was not a Pure Vessel, and had gone through with these things out of desperation, could that really be said to be better? There was a certain innocence in ignorance that was lost in understanding. Had he knowingly subjected the Knight to their fate, or had he instead gone along with the plan out of desperation and faith in his King’s promises of mindlessness? 

Neither option settled with Quirrel very well and he swallowed back the sour taste that had crept up his throat. There was nothing he could do to change the past, even if he had been able to remember it, but he had the chance here and now to make things better. He was a different bug now. And so was the Knight. 

He turned to them, hands still dripping with water from washing the spoon.

“I don’t think we have properly met,” he said cheerfully, the sweetness of his tone stark against the bitterness towards the Pale King still lingering on his tongue. He bowed deep, palms flat against his thighs. “My name is Quirrel, and I was an explorer of these ancient ruins.”

The Knight stepped back a little before hesitantly returning the bow, giving them ample room to avoid bonking Quirrel with their massive horns. The two of them straightened at the same time.

“Princess Hornet refers to you as ‘Hollow’. Is that what you wish for me to call you as well?”

The Knight stared at him for a long while, once again tracing the scars in their shell. Eventually they simply shrugged. Quirrel took a breath to ask if there was something else the Knight would rather be called when a scuffling noise snagged his attention. 

“What was that?” tumbled out of his mouth instead. The sound came again; the faintest skittering noise of claws on dirt that came from just below their feet. The Knight cocked their mask to the side, clearly able to hear it too. Their gaze drifted over Quirrel’s shoulder and he turned to find what they were staring at, quickly spotting the dull glint of metal on the wood floor. Quirrel hummed in mild surprise. It was a circle latch in one of the panels of the floor. He was willing to bet that it opened some kind of trap door into the nest’s cellar. No wonder he hadn’t seen any signs of food in the kitchen – the previous owners must have kept most of their non-perishables underground. 

The sound came again, but this time it was followed by the distinct sound of something shattering. Something was clearly rooting about in the cellar. Probably just some wild bug like a crawlid that had somehow gotten itself trapped. They couldn’t just leave it down there to make a mess or hurt itself, though, and Quirrel itched with curiosity about what could be in the cellar aside from the intruder. 

In the end, it was mostly his curiosity that prompted Quirrel to step forward and grasp the metal ring.

“Be ready,” he warned the Knight before opening the cellar door. “If it’s a wild bug it might bolt or attack. If it attacks, let’s try to corral it out the front door.”  
The Knight’s claws dug deeper into their side, but they gave a firm nod. The confirmation that the Knight would help him if whatever was scurrying around in the cellar was aggressive eased some of the tension from his shoulders. Quirrel felt unusually vulnerable without his nail, and he silently cursed himself for foolishly leaving it behind. Maybe he could retrieve it from the Blue Lake later. Taking a slow breath, he tugged open the heavy wooden door, the rusty hinges squealing in protest.

\---

A bright jangle of bells greeted Myla and Hornet as they pushed their way into a tiny, oddly shaped nest. Myla had initially thought the nest was just another house, like the one they were staying in, but a plaque hanging on the door said “Maps!” in big, bright runes. Hornet immediately steered the two of them towards the shop, dropping Myla’s hand to hold the door open for her. Myla smiled sheepishly, a strange fluttering in her belly. The cool shadows of the shop settled around her like a balm and Myla blinked her stinging eyes appreciatively. After the brightness of the day outside, the cool glow of the lumafly lanterns seemed almost dark. 

Even before her eyes adjusted to the comparative dimness, the rumbling sound of someone snoring drew Myla’s attention to a rather round figure curled up on a loft at the back of the small room. A heavy sigh pulled her gaze back down and Myla blinked in surprise at the height of the bug leaning against a low counter directly in front of the loft.  
“What can I do for you?” the tall mosquito sighed, giving Myla a level look. Myla faltered – clearly they needed a map, but she didn’t know why or where to. Hornet stepped forward, saving her from having to stammer out an answer. Her mask was barely level with the countertop. 

“We wished to inquire about a map of Deepnest and the areas immediately surrounding it,” she said politely. The shopkeeper cocked her head at Hornet, her hand falling from supporting her chin in mild surprise. 

“Deepnest, hmm?” She turned to shuffle through the rolls of spider-silk parchment stuffed into cubbies behind her. “That was one of the few places Corny refused to talk about when he returned home. He said it was quite an… unsettling place.”

“I grew up there,” Hornet said in a perfectly flat tone and the shopkeeper turned her head to stare at Hornet over her shoulder, a quick flash of embarrassment pinching her brow. But when Hornet spoke again her voice was light with amusement. “He is right that it is an unsettling place. Especially for those unfamiliar with our…quirks.”

The shopkeeper’s expression softened, and she turned with an armful of parchment rolls.

“If you grew up there, why is it you need a map?”

“I was young when I left,” Hornet shrugged. “Do you know every nook and cranny of where you grew up?” 

The shopkeeper gave a quiet laugh and leaned against the counter to cup her chin in a palm again while pushing the rolls towards them with the other.

“No, I suppose I don’t.” She tapped the scrolls with a claw. “These, however, might disappoint you if it is hidden ‘nooks and crannies’ you’re searching for. My husband’s maps are incomplete – he says there were several passageways sealed off by iron gates or impassible darkness, and so he could not chart most areas in their entirety. Deepnest, especially.”

“Why sell them if they aren’t finished?” Hornet challenged, her annoyance clear in the coldness of her tone. Myla fidgeted at the aggressive notes, rubbing the center of her palm with the opposite thumb. If these were the maps they had, she didn’t see any reason to get annoyed about it. 

“I didn’t say they were unfinished, merely incomplete,” the shopkeeper corrected with an easy shrug, apparently unperturbed by Hornet’s challenge. “How would you expect him to chart an area he could not reach? He makes the maps because he enjoys it, not to fulfil a market demand. In fact, aside from yourselves, the only other bug to frequent the shop was a little warrior Corny mentioned running into frequently in the ruins. We sell the maps for very little because a partial map is better than no map at all, and you can always add to it yourself as you choose.”

Hornet shifted in a way that suggested she was about to make a sharp retort, but Myla stepped forward to cut her off. 

“May we la-look over the maps f-first? To see if they would be helpful b-before we buy them?”

“Be my guest,” she sighed and pushed the rolls toward them. “If you have any questions, I can wake Corny up. He’s been asleep for a few days now, plenty long enough if you ask me.”

“Why so long?” Myla asked, a chill of nervousness creeping under her shell. “I-is he s-sa-sick?”

“Hardly,” scoffed the shopkeeper. “He just wore himself out. He always does this, furiously charts a place then collapses once he’s done. It leaves me a little lost for company sometimes.” She let out a heavy breath, having turned to lean her hip against the counter and stare up at the snoring bug. “Ahh, but I do love the bug, even his faults. Seeing his passion for maps, it’s something of an inspiration. Sometimes he would make the ruins of Hallownest sound a terrible, ghastly place, and other times a wonder.”

Affection warmed her tone, sweetening it like honey, and Myla felt her nervousness melt away. She smiled as Hornet’s tension eased out of her and the spider stepped forward to scoop the maps up into her arms. 

“May I spread these out somewhere?” she asked, her tone noticeably less irritated.

“The floor is your best bet, the counter here is too small to look at more than one map at a time.”

The two of them knelt right there in front of the counter, unrolling the large maps and orientating them in respect to each other. Myla felt a prickle of excitement tingle across her shell at the intricate drawings. She had never left the Crystal Peak before, and the thought of getting to see new parts of the kingdom both terrified and excited her. She wasn’t all that keen on going to Deepnest, but if Hornet could grow up there relatively unscathed then surely the rumors about how it was a dark maze filled with deceptive monsters and cannibalistic bugs were just that – rumors. 

After all, if it were really as dangerous as bugs said, there was no way Hornet would want to take her there.

\---

“There! There it is! Get it, get it get it get it – !“

The Hollow Knight spun at Quirrel’s shout, following his pointing finger to one of the shelves near their knee. The barest flicker of a white shell darting between the dusty glass jars snagged their attention, and the Knight lunged, trying to snatch up the tiny creature. But it had already disappeared amongst the general clutter of the cellar. In their rush, the Knight’s hand knocked into one of the jars, tipping it over with a clatter and sending it rolling toward the edge of the shelf. 

Instinctively, they tried to catch it with their right hand since their left was still behind another collection of jars, and immediately remembered they no longer had it. They flinched, bracing themself for the loud shatter as the jar rolled off the shelf. Thankfully, Quirrel had also surged forward for the tiny intruder and managed to catch the jar scant inches from the stone floor.

“That was close,” he puffed, carelessly placing the jar on a lower shelf than the one it had fallen from.

_Close for the jar or close for catching the tiktik?_ The Knight wondered. They jumped as the sound of breaking pottery shattered the thick quiet of the cellar and the two of them rushed around the stand of shelves to find the remains of a jar that had once held something dark and sticky scattered on the floor. The almost-black liquid seeped out in a spreading pool, and the Knight hesitated, reluctant to step in it.

“Did you see where it went?” Quirrel asked, tiptoeing around the puddle to shine the light of his tiny lumafly lantern into the deeper shadows on the shelves. The Knight shook their head no. Keeping track of anything in this cellar was a challenge.

The cellar was a single room the size of the nest above, but several rows of floor to ceiling shelves stuffed with glass and clay jars carved the space into narrow alleyways. The Knight had to slouch just to keep their horns from hitting the ceiling, and they were forced to squeeze through the narrow passages sideways. Turning around or crouching to peer at the lower shelves was quite the unexpected challenge. In addition to the small space, the cluttered nature of the shelves prevented Quirrel’s light from shining very far, and the shadows it created moved deceptively amongst the jars, making the Knight dart for something that wasn’t actually there. The two of them had slowly chased the tiktik through every set of shelves, gradually forcing it into the furthest corner of the cellar.

“I think it must have gone behind this last shelf,” Quirrel huffed, almost sounding winded. “You stay on this side, I’ll go around to the other and see if I can startle it towards you.”  
The Knight nodded and began searching the shelves intently for another fleeting flicker of white shell while Quirrel backtracked around the previous rack of shelves to get to the other end of this last passageway. 

The twisting shadows seemed to dart and dance amongst the numerous jars like scurrying crawlids as the light passed behind the opposite stand of shelves, and the Knight almost missed the subtle shift of actual movement behind a jar of jam. Quirrel rounded the corner at the other end of the shelves just as the Knight processed what they had seen. They pointed to the shelf, halfway between them and Quirrel, close to the ground. Quirrel paused, one foot still partly raised, then nodded in understanding. 

They both began to approach cautiously, Quirrel with his lantern hanging from a chain on his belt and the Knight with their arm lifted slightly from their side. 

“There!” Quirrel shouted just as the tiktik made a wild dash away from Quirrel’s light – and right towards the Hollow Knight.

The Knight practically dove for the tiny bug and felt a surge of warm accomplishment as their hand wrapped gently around the tiktik’s belly. They had it! But before they could get a decent hold on it, the tiktik twisted to sink its mandibles into the Knight’s wrist. They jerked their arm back in surprise more than pain, their elbow striking the shelf beside them and sending three more jars shattering upon the floor. The tiktik fell from their suddenly lax grip to land on its back amongst rolling grains and oozing jams, its dozen tiny black legs scrabbling at the air as it tried to right itself. The Knight frantically freed their cloak from around their shoulders, never taking their eyes off the tiktik as it managed to roll back to its feet and scurry towards one of the shelves.

“Oh no you don’t!” Quirrel cried and dashed at the bug at the same time the Knight swooped in with their cloak. What happened next was a blur of activity almost too quick for the Knight to follow. Quirrel slipped on the fallen grains and fell to the floor, but managed to bat the tiktik away from the safety of the shelf and back towards the Knight. The Knight scooped the tiktik up in their cloak, bundling it against their side with their hand. But when they tried to slow in order to avoid running into Quirrel, they slid on the dark pool of something sticky and went down hard, their momentum sending them crashing right into the startled pill bug just as he was starting to regain his feet. The two of them collided with the shelf, breaking one of them with a snap to send a shower of heavy jars raining around them. Despite being winded and disorientated, the Knight had the presence of mind to tuck the bundle with the tiktik under them and shield Quirrel from the falling jars. 

The sudden silence after everything stopped breaking was strident, almost ringing in the Knight’s head. They were breathing heavily, and they stared down at Quirrel, who had rolled into a tight ball with his hard outer shell providing extra protection from the broken glass and clay surrounding them. The Knight could feel the tiktik writhing in their cloak and they subconsciously held it tighter against themself. There was no way in all the realms the Knight was going to let it escape after all the trouble they’d just gone through to catch it. 

At the silence, Quirrel uncurled just enough to peer up at the Knight. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, seeming surprised to find that the Knight had curled themself over him. The Knight paused, assessing the dull ache along their back. A few of the jars had struck them, but not nearly hard enough to so much as bruise them, and they healed the bite on their wrist with a quick focus of soul, the task easier than breathing. They nodded their mask. They were fine. 

Quirrel curled a little tighter and began to tremble. The Knight sat up as cold fear prickled under their shell. Had they hurt him in the fall? 

But Quirrel sat up and began laughing. Great big belly laughs that rolled out of him like the rumble of a Stagbeatle. His bandana was almost completely pulled down around his neck, and his mask was skewed enough for the Knight to see the edge of his wide smile. Different colors of jam were smeared across his mask and shell, and he left a purple handprint on their mask as he adjusted it back into place. The Knight blinked in confusion, uncertain of what the pill bug found so funny. But after a brief moment, they found themself laughing, too. Quirrel looked ridiculous. Their chest shook with the quiet huffs, and Quirrel carefully got to his feet.

“Well that was quite an adventure,” he chuckled, fixing his bandana. “Did you manage to catch it?”

The Knight held up their cloak bundle triumphantly, the fabric twisting and bulging as the tiktik continued to search for a way out.

“Nicely done,” Quirrel congratulated. “And very quick thinking, using your cloak as a net.”

The Knight froze at the praise, startled by the warm glow it stirred in their chest. Nicely done? They had made an absolute mess and nearly squished Quirrel in the process. But still… they _had_ caught it, and Quirrel appeared unharmed. He turned in place, staring at the mess around them.  
“We’ll have to get this cleaned up,” he sighed, and the Knight nodded their head in agreement as they got their feet. They felt sticky and gross with splatters of jam smeared over them and they briefly wondered if they might be allowed a bath, too. 

Quirrel gave a deep hum and the Knight looked back at him. He was looking over some of the plethora of jars remaining, a hand on his chin in thought.

“I think there’s more than enough down here to make a good dinner too,” he mused. “How about, once we’re cleaned up, we make a nice warm meal to surprise Hornet and Myla when they get back?”

The Knight stared at him for a long moment, not confused by his words but confused by the strange feeling of fluttering warmth it stirred in their belly, akin to what they had begun to realize was anxiety, but better. Safer. Was it excitement? Affection? The thought of making something all of them would enjoy, something that might get the Knight more praise like what Quirrel just gave them, filled them with a buzzing warmth. They nodded their head eagerly and followed Quirrel to the ladder leading out of the cellar, the tiktik securely under their arm.

They could get used to feeling like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I'm going to try to not make swapping POVs mid-chapter a habit, but these sections were a little too short to feel like satisfying chapters on their own. Hope y'all don't mind!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm new to the tagging process so if I missed anything that should be tagged/have some form of content warning please let me know  
> I have another chapter in the works so please keep an eye out if you enjoyed this one


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